F 




Coast 
Country 
of 
Texas. 





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I'KKSKNTl-;!) BY 



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The Coast Country ?^ 



TEXAS 



A (iKNEKAI- STUDY oK THK lUCGIOX. ToiiETHEK WITH A KIUKK urTMNKOK ITS 

HISTORY, ITS A(iKl(;ULTUKAL AM) HISTOKICAI- I'OSSIBILITI KS, ITS 

S(M lAL CONDITIONS AND 1 NDUCKMKNTS To HOME-SEEK KliS. 



H. S. KNEEDLER. 



< INCINNATl, O.- 
The a. H. I'uciii Printing Comi-any, 

189C. 







aw 



EXPLANATORY. 



THE purpose of this little book is to truthfully describe the Coast 
Country of Texas, a region with respect to which most people 
outside of that great commonwealth are singularly uninformed. 
The object is not to magnify its advantages nor to hide any of its 
disadvantages. If the author has anywhere erred it has not been 
through an intention to deceive nor a want of honest effort to arrive 
at the truth. He personally visited all portions of the region, met 
and was aided by representative and intelligent citizens, to whom he 
hereby makes acknowledgment, and investigated the capability of 
the soil, its adaptability to the crops mentioned, the heathfulness 
of the region, the matter of water supply, the experience of old and 
new settlers, and everything which could contribute to the enlighten- 
ment of prospective settlers. The fertility of the soil he knew of , but 
he did not know how charming the landscape was, how the rolling 
prairie was diversified by abundant woodland and enriched by many 
clear streams. The thrift and solidity of the towns ; the intelligence 
and wealth and enterprise of the people were factors that awakened 
enthusiasm. Of these much is to be said in the pages that follow, and 
if what is there exploited shall incite the restless farmer of the north 
or east, weary of the struggle under adverse conditions of soil 
or climate, to visit this Coast Country the end shall have been ac- 
complished. For if such will come and see the possibilities for pro- 
longed life, for larger returns than are possible anywhere else, and 
with a minimum expenditure of labor, they will confirm what is here 
set forth and be grateful to the humble medium of their enlighten" 
ment. 



WHERE AND WHEN 



The Coast Country of Texas, which this modest pamphlet has 
been prepared to make better known to the world, may be roughly de- 
scribed as a strip of country from fifty to eighty miles wide, fronting 
on the Gulf of Mexico, and extending from the Sabine River on the 
east to the Neuces River on the southwest. Take a good map of 
Texas and you will see that the Sabine forms the boundary between 
Texas and Louisiana. From Orange the line of the Southern Pacific 
Railway bears west by a little south to Houston and Rosenberg. From 
the latter point the New York, Texas and Mexican, and the Gulf, 
Western Texas, and Pacific Railways, forming a part of what is known 
as the Southern Pacific Sunset Route, diverge southward to Beeville, 
where connection is made with the San Antonio and Aransas Pass 
Railroad. The lines referred to from Orange to Beeville pass through 
the very center of the region to be described, what is known as the 
Coast Country of Texas, so that as your eye follows the line of the 
road it will grasp the topographical characteristics of the region under 
consideration. We can roughly put it at thirty-five thousand square 
miles of territory. And when it is described as a rural paradise where 
the marvelous fertility of the soil and the wonderful salubrity of the 
climate make an ideal combination ; where almost every grain and 
fruit and vegetable grows with a prodigality unknown elsewhere ; 
where health is the handmaiden of industry, and the toil of life loses 
its hard aspect and labor has its just reward ; a region where all these 
elements are not only conjectural possibilities but realized certainties, 
and yet where land contiguous to railways and markets can be still 
purchased for from $5 to $12 per acre, the intellectual reader will ask, 
with a tinge of suspicious skepticism : 

"If this coast region is ail you say it is why is land so cheap ?" 
That is a matter to be made plain in the very beginning, for 
without a knowledge of the facts the prospective settler at the north 
or east would doubt what follows. He would reason, and very sen- 
sibly too, that a region so favored as we shall show this to be would 
have long since been populous and farm values greatly enhanced. 
Except for the extraordinary conditions which have prevailed here 
this would have been true of the Coast Country. And right here the 
writer makes a prediction. In ten years from now — in 1906 — should 
a copy of this brochure survive so long and fall into the hands of a 
resident of the Coast Country, he will marvel that it was ever needed 
to exploit its advantages, and will deem it almost incredible that so 



4 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

little while agone its fertile lands could have been purchased so 
cheaply. 

To understand the circumstances which have until the present 
time kept the price of lands in the Coast Country at such a low fig- 
ure, we must briefly review its history. We have seen within a de- 
cade lands selling at equally low figures in the north and middle west. 
There great areas of hitherto unpopulated country were opened to 
settlement. Their agricultural possibilities were unknown. The 
short summers and long winters, with their late springs, drouths and 
early frosts were indeed matters of common knowledge. But be- 
cause there has been a hereditary madness to pursue lines of emigra- 
tion upon the same latitudes, men settled upon them until in a few 
years they had practically all been taken up. The course of emigra- 
tion for centuries was westward, always westward. 

It became a habit of thought with men to believe that as their 
fathers had wrested a livelihood from the soil during a few summer 
months and consumed during the long winters what they had earned 
during the brief period of sowing and harvest, so they should do like- 
wise. And in spite of the rigors of a climate that preyed upon their 
health and denied them more than moderate rewards for industry, 
prejudice and ignorance were so firmly fixed that only a compara- 
tively few of the more adventurous broke away from the vast army 
of emigration and set their faces toward the richer promise-land of the 
south. To-day these bid their friends corne and share with them the 
prosperity they have found. They invite them to come not to a wil- 
derness where the institutions of civilization must be freshly set up, 
but to a country old in its settlement, with all its social fabric organ- 
ized, where the church and schoolhouse have for two generations been 
the beacons of enlightenment ; where hospitable homes have long 
opened their doors ; where the carriers of commerce draw them near 
to the markets of the world ; where the willing and industrious settler 
of modest means has before him the sure promise of comfortable afflu- 
ence ; where congenial sunshine and pure gulf breezes conspire to 
lengthen life, and prosperous cities and thriving towns afford all the 
advantages and amenities of life. 

And now as to the reason why the Coast Country of Texas, 
with all these fortuitious elements, has for so long been a closed region 
to the outside world, a veritable terra incognita to the eager emigrant 
in search of the land flowing with milk and honey. 

Sailing far out of his course in the search for the mouth of 
the Mississippi, La Salle, in 1685, entered Matagorda Bay, and 
a little while after built a fort on Lavaca River. Unhappy as was 
its brief career, this was to all intents and purposes the first European 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 5 

settlement in what we now know as Texas. And of the region which 
he traversed and mapped, the Coast Country, La Salle sent back to 
his royal master, Louis XIV., the most glowing accounts. Upon the 
founding of this so-called colony France vested its claim to all the 
lands between Mexico and Louisana. But Spain, by right of the early 
explorations of Narvaes, Coronado and Espejas, and the conquests of 
Cortez, laid claim to the disputed territory. Then Spain set about 
building its chain of missions from the Rio Grande to the Sabine, and 
each religious establishment became a presidio or military camp, so 
that while the indefatigable fathers spread abroad the fruits of their 
civilizing influence the soldiers welded fast the chain that made the 
Spanish claim good. In 1728 the Spanish Government sent over a 
colony, but after that seems to have repented of its good work, 
for even after its claim was made valid by the purchase of Louis- 
iana, and population made to increase, the crown enforced such 
obnoxious laws that the growth of the territory was retarded and en- 
terprise effectually throttled. The closing years of the eighteenth 
century and the opening decade of the nineteenth were troublous 
ones. In Mexico revolution succeeded revolution until in 1823 a re- 
public was established. The condition of Spain was deplorable, for 
it was rent by foreign wars and domestic discord. The United States 
had claimed that under the terms of its purchase of Louisiana, in 1803, 
it owned all the country east of the Rio Grande, but this dispute finally 
adjusted itself to a recognition of the Sabine as the dividing line. Dur- 
ing this period numerous expeditions of adventurous Americans made 
incursions into Texas for purposes of conquest, and the buccaneers 
of the gulf established their headquarters along the sheltered coast. 

Yet, in spite of the turmoil of the times and the dangers that har- 
rassed them alike from faithless Spanish officials and warlike Indians, 
many excellent American families had settled in the country and 
maintained the refinement of their lives in this then far off wilder- 
ness. 

But with the arrival of Moses Austin, in 1820, began the era of 
colonization which, while it laid the foundations of the great state of 
to-day, in large measure accounts for the fact that until a few years 
ago population was sparse in the Coast Country. Moses Austin and 
his son, Stephen F. Austin, Martin de Leon, Green De Witt, Hayden 
Edwards and others, styled empresarios — we would now call them by 
the less impressive title of colonization agents — secured important con- 
cessions from the Mexican republic to settle colonies in Texas. These 
concessions were accompanied by immense grants of land. Ten 
leagues of coast land had been reserved by the government for its 
own purposes, but this was thrown open to settlement in 1828. Under 



6 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 

the wise and progressive policy which adhered from 1820 to 1830, 
twenty thousand Americans settled in Texas, but in the latter year, 
under an illiberal and narrow-minded administration, a policy of op- 
pression was inaugurated and revolution followed and continued until 
1836, when the heroic Texans were victorious and established after 
six years of desperate and almost continuous struggle, the republic 
which they had fought for. 

During these years of uncertainty and doubt, when every Ameri- 
ican was harrassed and in danger, when property was insecure and 
law had become a shadow, it is not surprising that the land drifted 
into great holdings. At that time, and for many years after, it was 
chiefly valuable for the pasturage of vast herds of cattle. The great 
grants originally made were maintained in their integrity, while others 
equally great grew up about them and absorbed the land which, under 
other circumstances, would have been divided into small holdings. 
Estates of a hundred thousand acres were deemed small and those of 
half a million or a million acres were not uncommon. It was bought and 
sold for twelve and fifteen cents per acre. The herds of cattle which 
grazed upon it all the year round and needed no other feed to make 
them ready for the market, brought fabulous wealth to their owners, 
who were naturally reluctant to break up their holdings, and who re- 
sented the encroachments of the small farmer as a menace to their 
prosperity. But the most obstinate or reluctant could not stem the 
march of emigration, and gradually as the news went abroad that here 
upon the coast of Texas was a fair and fertile land, the prospector 
came, secured a foothold, and remained to prove that all that had 
been claimed for it was true. Cities grew up into great centers of 
trade and industry. Towns that had slumbered for generations 
awoke to new life. The railroad aggressively pushed its way in to 
create new industries and foster old ones. 

Colonization agents purchased large tracts and divided them that 
many might share the advantages. And the new values put upon 
land induced the owners of the great estates to put their property on 
the market, for when properties which they had bought for twelve 
cents an acre came to have a value of four or five dollars, and taxes, 
that had been an unknown factor, rose to what they thought the 
enormous sum of eighty cents on the hundred dollars at one-third 
valuation, and when highways were cut through their great pastures 
to facilitate the progress of the encroaching agriculturist, they saw the 
handwriting on the wall of their future and were willing to surrender 
to the inevitable. 




A Home in the Lower Coast Country. 



A PEN PICTURE OF THE COAST COUNTRY. 



Aside from certain local differences which are not important in a 
general review, the Coast Country may be separated into two divis- 
ions for descriptive purposes, the design in this instance being merely 
to convey to the reader an idea as to how the region appears to the 
eye. There are many people in this country who think of Texas as 
a great treeless plain. The writer confesses that he had much the 
same impression until he visited the state. The geographies he studied 
as a boy emphasized the " staked plains " and were singularly de- 
ficient with respect to any other information, and his teachers had as 
little knowledge of the country. 



8 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

We must remember that Texas is a very large state, so vast that 
from its eastern to its western border the distance is almost as great 
as that which separates Chicago from New Orleans or New York 
from Chicago. From north to south it is 756 miles ; from east to west 
872 miles, its area is 274,356 square miles, 33,413 square miles larger 
than the Austrian Empire, which sustains a population of 35,904,535. 
It is 62,265 square miles larger than the German Empire, whose in- 
habitants number 41,058,139. It is 70,265 square miles larger than 
France, which sustains within its borders 36,905,788 people ; and fin- 
ally it is more than twice the size of England, Ireland, Scotland and 
Wales combined, which support a population of 31,817,108. in a 
word Texas is capable of sustaining upon her surface in ease and pros- 
perity a population of 60,000,000. The present population is 3,000,- 
000. The topography of the state is exceptional. From the level 
Coast Country, where little rock is found, the altitude gradually in- 
creases to the northern borders, where it reaches an elevation of over 
3,500 feet. Northern Texas is distinctly the wheat region, although 
there are also productive cotton lands bordering the Red River ; east- 
ern Texas contains the vast forests of pine ; central Texas is a great 
cotton growing region ; western and southwestern Texas is specially 
adapted to wool growing and cattle raising ; the Pan Handle is adapted 
to the growth of the cereals, and wheat, corn and oats are rapidly en- 
croaching upon the stock ranges. Texas is not exclusively an agri- 
cultural state. It has vast deposits of valuable minerals, and its un- 
derground wealth is but partially explored. Coal is plentiful ; one 
bituminous coal formation on the Red River covers 12,000 square 
miles, with seams three feet thick. Bituminous and lignite coals are 
also mined in the Neuces district along the Rio Grande. The area is 
larger than in Pennsylvania. 

Extensive deposits of iron exist in eastern Texas, covering 1,000 
square miles, many veins being ten feet thick. Paying wells of pe- 
troleum are at Nacogdoches and there are surface indications of it in 
other counties. 

There is a bed of rock salt 140 feet thick underlying Victoria. 
There are several bat caves producing the famous bat guano, every 
bit of the product being placed far in advance of mining. 

Gold, copper, gypsum, asphaltum, marls and mica are found in 
paying quantities. The granite of Texas excels that of New Hamp- 
shire, in the verdict of capable judges. 

The traveler entering Texas via the Southern Pacific at Orange 
finds himself in the center of the great timber district. Here and at 
Beaumont — the former upon the Sabine the latter upon the Neches 
River twenty-one miles further west — are the great mill centers where 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS- 9 

the timber floated from the vast forests to the nortward is turned into 
the lumber of commerce and goes by way of Sabine Pass, to all parts 
of the world. Both the rivers mentioned are streams of great depth. 
Agriculturally speaking the section of the Coast Country for eighty 
or a hundred miles west of the Sabine is a new country. It is largely 
prairie land with a good deal of timber upon the streams, oak, pine, 
ash and hickory. Toward the gulf the land runs into salt marshes, 
which afford superb winter pasture and cattle fatten upon them as 
though stall fed. The soil is of two kinds, the sandy loams of the 
ridges and the dark, heavier and more fertile soil of the lower lands. 
As one goes westward the prairie vistas open more and more. The 
country is well watered, for beside the more important rivers like 
the Sabine, Neches, Trinity, and San Jacinto there are innumerable 
creeks and bayous. Thus in the thirty two miles between the Trinity 
River and the city of Houston one crosses Cedar Bayou seven miles 
west of the Trinity, the San Jacinto River eight miles further on ; 
Carpenter Bayou, four miles west ; Green's Bayou, four miles 
from that, and Hunter's Bayou, three miles further, and then Buffalo 
Bayou as one enters the city. It is so all through the coast country, 
for south of Houston we find the Brazos, the Colorado, Lavaca, Guad- 
aloupe and San Antonio Rivers, with the Sabine and the Neches the 
greatest in the state, for all the important rivers flow southeastwardly 
to a union with the gulf at about equal distances apart, while their 
innumerable feeders and affluents ramify in every direction and 
afford unexcelled drainage and abundant and ever-present water. 
South from Houston the Coast Country is a perpetual delight to the 
traveler. On the Brazos bottom there are a million acres adapted to 
the cultivation of sugar cane in all its perfection, and at Sugarland a 
great refinery has been in successful operation for years transforming 
the staple crop into the marketable product and bringing wealth to its 
owners and to those who raise the cane and sell it at the mill. A few 
miles beyond the Brazos, and past its fields of waving cane, and the 
tourist enters a billowy prairie country, covered with the most nu- 
tritious grasses, which continues to Beeville and beyond. It is a land 
heretofore given up largely to stock and to the growing of cotton, 
corn and sorghum. The surface is for the most part gently undulating. 
Along the streams and in well distributed clumps that dot the wide 
expanse of landscape there is abundance of timber, oak, elm, ash, pecan 
and many other varieties, enough to supply all the ordinary needs of 
the country. As one nearsthe coast line the timber ordinarily grows 
less abundant, and the wide, high prairie sweeps to the very water's 
edge without any intervening strip of marsh. The soil in the valleys, 
along the river, is a deep black, sandy loam, and probably no one now 



lO THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

living will be able to test the limit of its fertility. In some of the 
earlier settled localities, as for example, along the Brazos valley, 
twenty and even thirty crops of corn, cotton and cane in as many 
successive seasons have been produced without the use of any fertil- 
izer upon land that shows no signs of any dimunition in productiveness 
or adaptability to any crop the tiller may elect. The soil of the 
prairies consists of light grey, dark brown and black, sandy loam, and 
a kind technically known as "black waxy" and " hog wallow," The 
three kinds of loam are friable soils easily tilled and very easily 
subjugated. The prairie soil of Texas rots much more readily than 
the stiffer sod of Illinois or Kansas prairie land, and less power is re- 
quired for deep tillage. "Black waxy" or "hog wallow" land is 
very rich, but power is required to break it up and subsoil it and put 
it in condition for easy tillage. Although much of the land is planted 
in crops and fruit trees, as soon as it is broken and lightly subsoiled 
the best practice is to turn the sod, then after sixty or ninety days 
plow deep and leave the soil to cure by atmospheric action, then plant. 
The subsoil is almost universally retentive, furnishing the best basis 
for the methods employed in intense farming. 

The average rainfall all over the Coast Country is about 46 in- 
ches, and this is so well distributed that it serves all the purposes of 
agriculture. No total crop failure has ever been known. Water 
for drinking purposes is found everywhere under the clay subsoil in a 
strata of quicksand varying in depth from fifteen to thirty feet admir- 
able for stock purposes. At from 75 to 125 feet the second water vein 
is found throughout the Victoria region, and this water is perfectly 
pure and healthful. Artesian wells, the water from which rises to an 
elevation above the surface of from ten to thirty feet, are sunk to a 
depth varying from 250 to 500 feet according to locality. A bored well 
of four-inch diameter costs one dollar per foot complete. The cost of 
a three-inch artesian well of average depth is from ;$2 50 to 1^400. 

Throughout all the Coast Country there are prosperous 
cities and towns. The chief commercial centers of the state, 
Houston, and Galveston, are in the very center of this favored region. 
The former is the great railway center, the second largest cotton mar- 
ket in the world ; the latter the shipping port of the southwest, where 
the flags of all nations fly at the mastheads of the ships that daily 
come and go. The almost 60,000 people who at present comprise the 
populations of these two cities form a consuming home market for a 
large amount of farm, garden and dairy produce, while the railways 
that radiate from Houston to all parts of the country give ready access 
to the great distributing centers at Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, 
New Orleans, New York, Baltimore and other points. Already great 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



II 



quantities of vegetables and fruits, as well as game, fish and oysters 
are shipped from the coast points to these cities. The Coast Country 
is to be the real truck patch of the nation, for it puts its products of 
garden and orchard into the market before any other section of the 
continent and at seasons when the very pinnacle of high prices rewards 
the producer. And as its fruits and vegetables go all over the union, 
so does its game, for it is a veritable sportsman's paradise where deer, 
quail, prairie chickens, wild turkeys, etc., have their home in wonder- 
ful abundance ; where the bays and inlets of the coast are resorted to 
by all the waterfowl of the north and vast flocks of every variety of 
duck, as well as geese and brant are an easy prey, its fish and oys- 
ter industries are enormous and inexhaustible, and terrapin farming 
has been added to the apparently unlimited list of its resources. 

With respect to the climate of this region a misapprehenion exists 
which we desire to correct. The popular idea of our northern friends 
is that because the Coast Country lies south of the 30th parallel of 
latitude it must be extremely and oppressively warm in summer. 
This is an error. The thermometer has never been known to record 
as high a temperature in the Coast Country as it does every summer 
in Illinois, Iowa or Kansas. The data compiled for the year 1894 at 
the United States Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau Stations 
at Galveston and Houston showed the following results : 



GALVESTON 


Jan. 


Feb. 


March 


April 

71.8 
80. 
58. 
1.42 
00 


May 

77.0 

88. 

62. 

I. 

00 


June 

78.6 
87. 
64. 
9.89 
00 


July 

81.3 
97. 
69. 
6.32 
00 


Aug. 
80.2 

02. 
70. 

9.49 
00 


Sept. 

80. 
88. 
68. 
2.64 
00 


Oct. 

74-4 
87. 
49. 
0.51 
00 


Not. 


Dec. 


Year. 




p- ( Average •■• 
S j Maximum 
*~ ' Minimum- 
Rainfall 


58.0 
72. 
24. 
2.41 
00 


536 

75. 

28. 

2.69 

00 


63.2 
76. 

1.96 
00 


63.8 

79. 

41. 

1.59 

00 


58.8 

77- 

21. 

0.72 

00 


70. 

97. 
21. 
40.64 
00 


Aierage 
Highest. 

Lowest. 
Total. 







HOUSTON. 


Jan. 

54.1 

79- 

18. 

3-59 

00 


Feb 

50.6 

79- 
23. 

4.17 
00 


march 

62.4 
85. 
32. 
5.01 
00 


April 

71.5 
92. 

48. 
2.31 

00 


May 

75.2 
95. 
48. 
2.31 
00 


Jun^ 

77.8 
97. 
57. 
5-45 
00 


July 

80.3 
104. 

65. 
2.69 
00 


Aug. 

78.8 

97- 
65. 

5-75 
00 


Sept. 

76.4 

94. 

56. 

3.25 

00 


Oct. 

74-5 
90. 
36. 
0.69 

00 


Not. 

59- 

80. 

34- 

0.84 

00 


Dee. 

54-6 

76. 

■5. 

1.05 

00 


Year. 

67.9 
104 

36.25 

00 




P ( Average .■ 
33 I Maximum 
^ ( Minimum 
Rainfall 


Average 
Highest. 
Lowest. 
Total. 







12 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



The Galveston weather station also issued the following table 
which shows the distribution of the rainfall, the variations of temper- 
ature and the comparatively few cloudy days : 



MONTHS. 



Rainfall pre- 
cipitation in 
inches. 



TEMPERATURE. 



Highest. 



Lowest. 



No. Days 
no sun- 
shine. 



January ••• 
February •• 

March 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August . ••• 
September • 
October ••• 
November ■ 
December • 



Total. 



2.»6 

1.92 
4.96 
5.14 

5.38 
7.42 
1.82 
5.09 

4-79 
4.38 
2.37 
2.23 



48.36 



74 
75 
76 
81 

85 
90 
92 
90 
87 
89 
79 
75 



35 
34 
30 
56 
63 
65 
71 
70 
56 
54 
49 
47 



What these tables show as to the average annual temperature at 
Houston and Galveston applies pretty much to all the Coast Country. 
A record kept for thirty years at Victoria by Dr. Cook, and verified 
by the U. S. reports, show the annual mean temperature to be 70 to 
75; in July 80 to 85; in January 55 to 65; maximum 95 to 100; 
minimum 20 to 30 above zero. Annual rain fall 35 to 40 inches, the 
same as in Missouri, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, and for spring 
and summer is 20 to 25 inches, the same as in above states, together 
with Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania. A. W. 
McLain, late of the United States Department of Agriculture and ex- 
Director of the Minnesota State Agriculture Experiment Station, made 
a careful study of the Coast Country and says of the matter of tem- 
perature and rainfall : Average temperature in the Texas coast dis- 
trict, as shown by the signal service records, taken at an elevation of 
forty feet above sea level, for the last fifteen years, has been for the 
spring months 70.5 degrees Fahrenheit ; for the summer months 82.2 ; 
for the fall months 69.8 and for the winter months 55.7 degrees. 

The annual rainfall of the whole Texas coast district within the 
rain belt is from 43 to 65 inches, well distributed throughout the spring 
and summer ; besides the heavy dews, a characteristic feature of the 
region, furnish a source of daily refreshment for all forms of plant life. 
There is commonly but little rainfall during the months of October, 
November, December and January, but within the rain belt there is 
seldom a lack of sufficient precipitation at the proper season for the 
growth of all field, garden and fruit crops. 

To make a successful crop of any kind depends entirely upon the 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



13 



frequent rains. The section under review is blessed witli that much- 
needed necessity to the soil producer. According to the census report 
of the United States, the average spring rainfall is 15:^ inches, while 
10 inches is all that is necessary to insure a crop on these lands. 

Concerning healthfulness, the Texas Commissioner of Agricul- 
ture says (see 5th An. Report, p. 483) : " Away from low places sub- 
ject to periodical overflows, there is absolutely no cause for sickness, 
and there is no reason why the state should not become a health resort 
as well as a refuge for people seeking to escape the rigors of winter 
in more northern latitudes. Southwest Texas — the Coast Country — 
has long been recognized by some of the leading physicians of the 




Blooded Stock in the Coast Country 

United States as possessing a climate the equal if not the superior of 
any in the world for persons with a tendency to or suffering from pul- 
monary affections." Doubtless the experience common to the rapid 
settlement of a new country will be realized to some extent in the 
Coast Country, but many of those who have lived there for years 
spoke confidently concerning the general healthfulness of this region, 
daily visited by the salt sea air. The trade winds blow daily from 
the gulf, reaching a distance of from seventy-five to one hundred miles 
inland. Concerning the trade winds, the Commissioner of Agricul- 
ture says: " They dispense life to vegetation and health to the in- 
habitants wherever they reach ; the long summers characteristic of 



14 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

this latitude are by tliem rendered not only endurable but enjoyable. 
" So marked is the influence of the gulf winds on the climate of the 
state that the average temperature along the gulf coast and for many 
miles inland is much lower during the summer months than it is in 
the higher latitudes of the north. The same infloence neutralizes the 
cold of winter and makes the southern part of the state the mildest 
and most delightful of any state in the Union." 

At all points eastward on the gulf and at all points above this 
latitude northward along the entire Atlantic coast to New York the 
thermometer indicates a lower temperature in winter and a higher 
temperature in summer than at Galveston and along the Texas Coast 
Country. In other words, it is hotter in summer and colder in winter 
at any point on the gulf or the Atlantic coast above this latitude than 
in the Coast Country of Texas. The " norther," an important feature 
of Texas climate, is nothing more than what is called elsewhere a cold 
north wind. The wind usually attains its greatest velocity in twenty- 
four hours, then gradually ceases, veering again to the south. 

The winter is a succession of pleasant days with the temperature 
ranging from 40 to 60 degrees, falling three or four times each winter 
to 32 and 33 degrees, and in seasons far apart as low as 20, 25 and 29 
degrees, but these seasons of low temperature are of short duration 
and rare occurrence and seldom cause injury. In summer the tempera- 
ture ranges from 84 to 88 degrees for weeks and months ; the highest 
temperature reached in Galveston in three succeeding summers was 
91, 93 and 96 degrees. Injury from sunstroke is almost unknown. 
July is the warmest month. Killing frosts do not usually occur at 
Houston or Galveston until after December ist. and the unwelcome 
visitation is frequently delayed until January. Four years in twenty 
there was no frost whatever in Galveston, and in five different years 
there was but a single frost. The last hard frost appears any time 
between January 5 and February i. 

In summer the weather is without noticeable variation. This 
evenness of temperature is what makes it possible for the farmer to 
work out of doors nearly every day in the year in comfort. The genial 
southern trade wind, blowing over a thousand miles of salt water, 
brings both warmth and coolness, and contributes to maintain a simi- 
larity of seasons. This wind is always in motion, but rarely with 
enough violence to stir the dust. 

No matter how fervent may be the direct rays of the sun a step 
into shade brings pleasant relief. The nights are uniformly agreeable. 
The climate is comparable to that of Italy and Southern California 
Contrary to accepted tradition, the inhabitants of the gulf coast do not 
eat quinine with every meal, nor are their faces invariably sallow. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 15 

Malaria is a fable and a dream, except when invited by carelessness 
or ignorance. Though this is a flat country (like Illinois, Indiana and 
Michigan), it has only few tracts of swampy land of small extent. 
Where forests occur, along the bayous, they are devoid of under- 
growth, a sure sign that nothing is present productive of ague. The 
surplus rainfall perfectly drains into the gulf. Chills and fever only 
appear sporadically along the overflowed and undrained river bottoms. 
On the high open prairies malaria is an unknown visitor. 

Colds and catarrh cause more suffering and bring about more 
graveyard additions in the New England states alone than the com- 
bined diseases of the gulf coast. No epidemic diseases have visited 
this section for a quarter of a century. Periodical fevers are almost 
entirely absent, and the average annual death rate in Galveston does 
not exceed 15 per 1,000 inhabitants. 



GARDEN AND ORCHARD. 



When we turn to a consideration of the agricultural possibilities 
of the coast region of Texas which has already been defined, its capa- 
bilities are so large, the possibilities for profitable industry are so 
gr^at that it will be a difficult task to set them forth so modestly as to 
make them seem credible to the northern farmer unaccustomed to 
and unfamiliar with this soil and climate. And in contrasting this 
favored region with the home of the farmer in the northwest we are 
reminded of the truthful picture which S. P. Panton, an experienced 
and studious agricultural observer, drew in a recent magazine article. 
Speaking of the northwestern emigration he said : " A few years of 
great crops and good prices in the blizzard belt of Minnesota and Da- 
kota were followed by several seasons of early frosts that caught the 
wheat in the milk ; other years the rains set in at harvest time and 
poured so continuously that the wheat couldn't be threshed, and 
sprouted in the shock. The settlers were housed up by blizzards all 
winter in their little box cabins ; their children were mowed down by 
the scourge of diptheria ; their lives were a dead, colorless monotony, 
varied by salt bacon three times a day when they had it, and the tree- 
less, blizzard-swept prairie proved the possession of land there to be 
anything but an unmixed blessing. When there were good crops the 
elevator charges and the freight charges for the long haul to tidewater 
left but little compensation for the hardships, the arduous toil and the 
generally depressed lives of the settlers in the blizzard belt. There 
was but one crop, wheat, therefore but one pay-day in the year and 
that uncertain. The climatic eccentricities kept the crop in constant 
danger and the farmer in constant anxiety ; and when bad seasons 
succeeded each other, the farm, the crops in the ground and even the 
implements were loaded with mortgages at such rates of interest that 
from that time forth the farmer was a slave to his creditors, and the 
sooner he was sold out the better for him." 

As against the vicissitudes and losses of such a life as Mr. Panton 
describes, and which we all know to be a truthful picture, the Coast 
Country of Texas is a veritable paradise and the range of its products 
is bewildering. All the products of the temperate zone with the ex- 
ception of wheat flourish here, together with all the sub-tropic and 
many of the tropical growths. The truck farmer can plant, mature 
and ship vegetables at any time of the year. The horticulturist has 
every fruit at his command and finds that, with the possible excep- 
tion of certain varieties of cherries and apples, he can grow what suits 
his fancy. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 17 

And yet land in this section can still be bought at from $5 to $15 
per acre. Ten or twelve dollars would probably be a fair range of 
values for desirable lands such as the home seeker from the north or 
east would naturally choose. That means lands contiguous to ship- 
ping facilities, to good markets, to schools and to every environment of 
civilization, With half the labor required to make farms in the north- 
west worth $40 per acre these lands in the Coast Country can be 
made worth ;^500 per acre. It is not a dream or a visionary specula- 
tion. It has been done and is being done in numberless instances, and 
these pages will point to the instances and give you the opportunity 
of verifying the statement. A thousand dollars brought here by any 
practical northern farmer who is willing to work will be equivalent 
at the beginning to $5,000 put into a farm at the north; will make 
him absolutely certain of maintaining himself independently from the 
beginning, and in five years give him the enjoyment of an income 
rarely equalled on any 320 acre farm in the north. 

The writer believes that the great future of the Coast Country 
lies in the direction of orcharding and truck-farming. Intense farming 
yields enormous returns here where two and three crops are raised on 
the same ground, and instead of skimping and saving to get enough 
money to come to Texas and buy a 200 acre farm the home seeker 
should remember that ten or twenty acres will yield him immense re- 
turns if properly cultivated. In France five acres is a large farm, and 
in California ten acres suffices for any family. Even in frigid Massa- 
chusetts a dozen acres is ample to secure a good income. In Holland 
and Belgium families live in comfort on two and three acres. What, 
then, are the possibilities here ? The winter climate of the Coast 
Country favors the growth of the crisp and succulent vegetables grown 
at the north in summer, and the rest of the year can be devoted to 
products not grown north at any time. 

The sub-tropical products include the orange, lemon, lime, po- 
melo, shaddock, pomegranate, fig, Japanese persimmon, and the 
grapes of the Mediterranean, the ginger, camphor and cinnamon trees, 
the cassava, from which tapioca is made, the great variety of valuable 
fibres; the canaigre, for tanning fine leather, for which there is a strong 
demand throughout the civilized world, and innumerable other plants 
of value. Almost any one of these products intelligently handled w ill 
pay several times the profit per acre of the best crops in the north- 
west. This is, so far as known, the only part of the republic east of 
California where the finest European grapes attain the greatest per- 
fection. As they ripen here from four to six weeks earlier than in 
California the viticulturists of this coast have the run of the markets 
when there is no competition, and their comparative proximit\- to the 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 



body of consumers gives them great and permanent advantages over 
the Californians. These grapes are pruned down to a mere stump 
and the trailers or vines permitted to run out over the ground as in 
California vineyards, without the viticulturist being put lo the ex- 



■«={.; 




pense of supports, wires or stakes of any kind. They are ready for 
market by the first of June, and often sell at that time at twenty-five 
cents per pound. The yield is from 40 to 125 pounds to the vine. The 
experience of the practical viticulturists in the Coast Country pro- 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS IQ 

nounces in favor of certain varieties — Chasselas, Muscat or Muscatelli, 
Chasselas Rose de Peru, Emperor, Black Morocco or Tokay (both 
flame and white), Malaga or Chasselas Napoleon, Black Spanish, Le- 
noir or Black Burgundy, Goethe, Rogers No. i, Salem, Rogers No. 53, 
Niagara, Black .July, Concord, Roulander, Delaware, Missouri, 
Rissling and Herbemont. 

If well fertilized most varieties come into bearing the second year, 
and when three years old may be counted on for a yield of ten to fif- 
teen pounds of luscious grapes to the vine and much more as they in- 
crease in age. 

The strawberry season opens early and about thirty days in ad- 
vance of all competition. The sandy lands of southeast Texas are 
well adapted to this berry, and the annual net returns for some years 
have been $1,000 to every three acres of berries. The blackberry 
grows over a much larger territory and by many have been found to 
be more profitable than the strawberry. Strawberry picking and ship- 
ping begins about the middle or latter part of January and not later 
than February 15th in any part of the Coast Country, and the early 
berries often bring $1 per quart in the northern markets. The ship- 
ping season lasts about three months. One man reported that he had 
gathered 1,000 quarts of ripe berries from one acre in one day. 
Another, who said he was only an amateur in gardening, reported 
that he made $500 per acre profit on strawberries last season. 
Another, living two miles from Alvin, reported that he fertilized one 
acre of ground with stable manure and. without any assistance what- 
ever, he raised and marketed from that one acre, in 1893, ^ ^i"^? 0^ 
strawberries from which he realized the sum of ;^ 1,326. On the same 
acre of land, in 1892, he raised a crop of celery which he sold for 
$1,000, doing all the labor himself. The celery grown here is ready 
for market about the time the northern crop is exhausted. 

The following estimates taken from a reliable source is considered 
conservative. The cost of production in the estimate is sufificiently 
high to cover every item of expense, while the estimated profits are 
much less than the actual average, and is for an acre of raw prairie 
land : 

One acre of land, say $8.00 

Breaking first time . 3.00 

Harrowing and rebreaking 2.50 

13,000 strawberry plants. 26.00 

Planting 7.00 

Cultivating twice and fertilizer 7.00 

Total $53 50 



20 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

This one acre of strawberries, set out in June, July, or August, 
will, if properly cared for, net the owner the following spring $300 
to $400. The second year it will net from $600 to $1,000. 

The average net profit per acre from tomatoes, according to the 
reports given by experienced farmers, is from $300 to $400 ; onions, 
$250 to $400; strawberries, $350 to $500; peas, $100 to $300; 
snapbeans, $100; sweet potatoes, $150; Irish potatoes. $150; rad- 
dishes, $150; spring turnips, $100; cauliflower, $400; cabbage, 
1^300; peaches, $150; pears in full bearing, from $400 to $500. 

When Mr. H. M. Stringfellow concluded to plant a pear orchard 
in Galveston County and make the LeConte pear his principal one, 
his friends told him of those who had tried that pear and failed, and to 
beware of danger and great loss. Having nothing to guide him in the 
way of other men's success and knowing what his friends told him 
was so, he concluded as a last resort to plantthepear orchard and rely 
on new methods for results. Last year he marketed 9,127 bushels of 
pears off of thirteen acres, and paid out nearly $100 per acre to his 
neighbors as wages for help and harvesting, and the crop netted him 
$5,245. His new method was merely to fertilize his land heavily, 
using as much as a ton per acre, and his results are a fortune to himself 
and his descendants. State Commissioner of Agriculture J. E. Hol- 
lingsworth had in his collection one bushel of these pears and they 
averaged 33 ounces each in weight and would sell on account of excel- 
lence in any market. 

An orchard of the LeConte and Keifer pear trees upwards of 
eight years of age, properly attended to, will yield a certain annual 
revenue of $700 per acre above all expense of taking care of the trees 
and cost of marketing the fruit. The Le Conte and Keifer pears are 
supposed to be American seedlings from the ancestral Asiatic pear, 
which in its own home is an immense forest tree, often attaining to 
the age of 300 years. The original Le Conte tree is still standing in 
Georgia, a magnificent specimen, hardy, beautiful and prolific. These 
wonderful new pears are as hardy as forest trees, of luxuriant foliage, 
grow to a great size, and are free from blight and yield every year an 
enormous crop of fruit that sells in eastern and northern markets at 
prices that compete with the older and better known varieties. As a 
fruit for canning, drying or preserving they are acknowledged as un- 
equalled. When picked somewhat green and ripened in cellars, many 
connoisseurs pronounce them equal to the famous Bartlett. 

Never have they failed to bud abundantly, and on the gulf coast 
of Texas there has never been a single failure of the Le Conte, Keifer 
and Carber pear crop, while in quality the fruits grown in more north- 
ern climes suffer in comparison. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 21 

The Le Conte of the Coast Country is the earliest pear grown 
anywhere in the United States. It can be placed upon the market 
during the latter part of June, which is fully three weeks earlier than 
fruit can be plucked in California, The Le Conte is a very delicious 
pear ; while it does not rank as high as some varieties or command the 
highest prices, it is a pear that supplies the market patronized by the 
great middle class of people. It is a very rapid grower and yields 
abundantly. Most of these pears are shipped in car load lots to Chi- 
cago, where they sell at from $1.25 to $2 per bushel. 

These pears are very juicy, sweet, and of very fine grain. In 
fact the whole Coast Country is the home of the pear, and a great 
deal of attention is now being given to the subject and orchards are 
now being set out in all parts of it. The rapidity with which vines 
and trees mature is a perpetual source of amazement to the new 
comer. A single branch of a grape vine made a growth of 46 feet in 
a year and produced a large crop. A two-year-old peach tree, planted 
from the seed, measured five inches in diameter at one foot from the 
ground and had a fine spread of limb and a very symmetrical growth. 

Figs grow in the greatest profusion. Fruit growers who are be- 
ginning to cultivate it claim that it is the most profitable fruit that can 
be raised in this locality. Two hundred fig trees can be planted to 
the acre, which will begin to bear in two years, and be in full bearing 
in five years, and will then yield annually 400 pounds of fruit each, a 
net profit when dried and preserved of $30 a tree. The largest or- 
chard of fig trees which I know of in the state is near Port Lavaca, 
directly on the gulf coast, where there are 1,300 trees. At Port La- 
vaca I also saw olive trees growing within a hundred yards of the 
beach which had withstood the cold weather of last winter without ap- 
parent injury. The fig finds here a soil and climate as well adapted 
to it as any part of California, and it is only a question of a short time 
when the profits realized will induce many people to engage in its cul- 
ture and when its preservation and shipment will become an import- 
ant industry. 

Texas is tlje home of the plum. It grows wild in the woods in 
luxuriant profusion. No less than three kinds of wild plums grow in 
southern Texas, and all of fine quality and marketable. The culti- 
vated varieties have paid as high as $800 per acre. 

The cauliflower will, in the near future, be raised in large quanti- 
ties for shipment in car lots. A salt atmosphere seems to be essential 
to the perfect development of this vegetable, and as the soil here is 
admirably adapted to it, every condition is favorable to its growth. It 
is strictly a fall vegetable, and when sown early in July and set out 



22 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS- 

in August in rich soil the bulk of the crop can be marketed before 
January. 

■Cabbages, when planted at the right time, yield large returns. 
There is scarcely a limit to the quantities that can be disposed of in 
the northwest, if grown in sufficient numbers to warrant car load ship- 
ments. They are planted in September. 

The tomato is another crop that will head the list for profit. It 
is safely demonstrated that the tomato will produce abundantly in the 
Coast Country . It begins to ripen May 20, and at once finds ready 
sale at high prices all over Texas. 

The small white navy bean make two crops a year on the same 
land and yields very abundantly. 

The Creole and White Queen onions are as successfully grown 
here as around Nev/ Orleans. They mature in April, just when north- 
ern onions are sprouting, and the demand is unlimited. Two hundred 
dollars an acre net is considered an average profit, but much larger 
sums have been made when greater care and cultivation has been 
given to the crop. 

Irish potatoes do well everywhere ; the early planting rarely 
brings under a dollar a bushel. They are a sure and profitable crop. 
The early crop is ready to be dug from the 20th of April to the loth of 
May. One grower near Wharton, in 1894, by shipping in car load 
lots to Chicago and St. Louis markets, netted ^60 per acre clear of 
all expenses, including cultivation, shipping and commissions, and im- 
mediately planted the same ground in cotton and picked three- fourths 
of a bale to the acre last fall. This same farmer, in 1895, shipped 
some fifteen cars to Chicago with even better results, and at once 
planted cotton on the same land. 

Beans, peas, cucumbers, squash, beets and cantaloupes are grown 
in quantities, reach an early stage of perfection and find a ready 
market. 

Peanuts almost grow wild and are a profitable crop when culti- 
vated. Tlie nut flourishes best on sandy soil and requires lime. It is 
planted in rows, about like beans, only one nut in a place, and is cul- 
tivated thoroughly to keep down the grass and weeds until the vines 
nearly cover the ground. The established weight of the peanut is 22 
pounds to the bushel, and the yield ranges all the way from 25 to 100 
bushels per acre. The price ranges from two and one-half to six cents 
per pound, and the crop as a rule, is expected to pay better than the 
corn or potato crop. Before planting, the nuts must be shelled by 
hand and great care taken not to injure the inner skin. They are 
planted by hand, cultivated largely by hand, ploughed out when ripe, 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 23 

and the vines are carefully lifted with most of the nuts adhering to 
them, and stacked up in small piles, just as beans are harvested in 
many places. Here they stand for several weeks until the nuts and 
the vines are both cured. Then the nuts are picked off and sacked 
for transportation to market. 

The melon crop is a very important and profitable one. One 
county realized from 230 acres last year the handsome sum of $32,966. 
This county was equally successful with "garden truck," as it reports 

399 acres valued at $130,660. 

Experiments with California apricots and cherries in the vicinity 
of Victoria have proven most successful. 

Of sweet potatoes there is literally no end. They grow here as 
they grow nowhere else, and numberless instances could be cited in 
proof of the fact. Two crops a year are grown on the same ground. 
B. C. Moffett, of Galveston County, raises 400 bushels to the acre and 
finds a ready sale for them at $ i per bushel. Single specimens weigh- 
ing over nine pounds were shown the writer. J. Brogden, living near 
Bryan, in Brazos County, demonstrated that cotton was not the most 
profitable crop by planting six acres in sweet potatoes last year. He 
sold 200 bushels at fifty cents a bushel to the local trade, and shipped 

400 bushels to Waco, Texas, at forty-five cents per bushel, and had at 
home 200 bushels more. The money value of the crop thus reaches 
at least $380, or nearly $65 per acre. The sweet potato is one of our 
most important vegetables, according to the statistics of the fifth annual 
report of the Agricultural Bureau of Texas. The value of the potato 
crop for that year was $1,503,764. Total number of acres planted 
was 20,928, The value per acre was $50.25. The cost of growing 
crops of corn, wheat, cotton and potatoes is very nearly the same. 
The tops of sweet potatoes make a fine feed for cattle, especially 
milch cows. The vineless potato tops are particularly valuable in that 
they remain green during several drouths, when it is difficult to get 
green grass with which to feed. They may be cut with a mowing 
machine and put up like fodder. They should be mixed with cotton 
seed or cotton seed meal. 

In the vicinity of Victoria 1 saw olive trees which had gone 
through the phenomenal freeze of February, 1895, and appeared 
thrifty and vigorous. 

Peaches of varieties adapted to local conditions of soil and expos- 
ure have proven very profitable. At the eastern limit of the Coast 
Country the success which has attended the efforts of W. A. Ward, 
of Jefferson County, a practical fruit farmer who moved to that 
county from Dakota, in the growth of peaches, has probably done 
more to bring the people to a realization of the possibilities of the soil 



24 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



than anything else. It has demonstrated that almost any kind of ag- 
ricultural products would mature in the eastern Coast Country just 
as it does all through it, and for such fruits as strawberries, grapes, 
plums, etc., the soil and climate were equal in every respect to that of 
California, hut the peach was shelved and tabooed as one of the im- 
possibilities in Jefferson and Orange counties. In fact when Mr 
Ward was setting out his orchard many well-meaning friends warned 




him that he was wasting time and money. They assured him that 
something more than forty years ago an attempt was made to grow 
peaches in Jefferson County and it proved a dismal failure. Mr. 
Ward persisted, however, and to-day he has one of the healthiest and 
prettiest orchards in the state and is hauling to Beaumont the finest 
flavored peach that has ever been put on the market. This is 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 25 

the verdict of the people of Beaumont who have seen the orchard and 
eaten of the fruit. 

Near Sour Lake there is a peach orchard of one and two year old 
trees from which fruit in merchantable quantities was actually sent to 
market this year. 

The bee industry is one which promises much in the coast region. 
At a late California convention of bee keepers, Mr. Francis W. Black- 
ford, in an essay on bee keeping, among other facts said that the an- 
nual value of honey in the United States is close upon $icx),ooo,ooo 
and the number of colonies of bees kept by apiarists equaled about 
one-fifth of the number of sheep in the United States. This would place 
the number of colonies of bees at 9,00x3,000, which, at an average value 
of only $3 a colony, would represent an investment of $20,000,000 
in bees alone. 

Mrs. Jennie Atchley, of Beeville, who is one of the most success- 
ful apiarists in the country, says : 

"Since I have located my queen rearing establishment and bee 
keeping plant in Bee County, I have spared neither time nor pains to 
fully explore this as a bee country. I find wild bees in great profusion 
here as well as tame bees, and find that the bees kept here are the 
native stock with only a touch of the Italian blend occasionally, and 
they are rich in stores and prosper without attention. 1 am fully sat- 
isfied that this country will never experience a failure of a honey crop 
as does California and other parts of the Pacific coast, because our 
honey here is gathered from trees and shrubs that are not affected by 
dry weather like the sages and honey plants of California. I find that 
the honey here will compare favorably with the clearer honey of the 
north, and is pronounced by A. I. Root, a noted bee man of Medina, 
Ohio, as being as fine honey as he ever saw. The climate here is 
just right for the propagation of the honey bee the year round, and to 
make a long matter short will say that I consider this the finest bee 
country in the United States." 

The possibilities of successful artificial use of water in truck farm- 
ing, in the exceptional instances where it is needed, has been amply 
demonstrated by Messrs. Kohler and Heldenfels on their great truck 
farm near Beeville, at the very southwestern limit of the section of 
the Coast Country we have been describing. Their "farm" com- 
prises 20,000 acres, 8,000 in cultivation. Two years ago a large tank 
was constructed on the farm capable of holding 700,000 gallons of 
water. This tank is about 100 feet in circumference and 16 feet deep. 
The earth was excavated to a depth of six feet and a ten-foot embank- 
ment thrown up. The earth was then packed perfectly solid and the 
inside cemented. The tank is round and \'erv much resembles an 



26 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

immense washbowl. A well was bored to a depth of 107 feet at a dis- 
tance of 30 feet from the tank. A windmill and pump were placed in 
position, and at every stroke of the piston a gallon of water is dis- 
charged into the tank. A similar well was bored a short distance fur- 
ther from the tank, and a windmill and pump placed thereon with a 
like capacity. The water sparkles and bubbles as it pours into the 
big basin, and is of a pure blue-white color, very much resembling 
the water of Niagara River as it speeds over the cataract at the falls. 
It is of good drinking quality, pure and clear. 

The catch-basin or water tank is on the highest point of land, and 
when water is needed to irrigate all that is necessary is to open the 
floodgates and let it flow over the ground. The fmest crop, largest 
yield and best Creole onions ever seen in Texas were grown in the 
field near the tank. The tank, well cemented and capable of storing 
nearly three-quarters of a million gallons of water, cost between $500 
and $600. The two windmills and pumps placed in position cost, 
say, $150 each. Here we have an outlay of between $800 and $900. 
But look at the results. The land has produced over ten tons of onions 
to the acre, which, at the prevailing price of ;^40 per ton on board 
the car, is $400. The crop gathered from two acres of onion seed 
pays for all the improvements, and the tank has a capacity to irrigate 
twenty acres. 

Under the direction of Mr. Maxwell, who is an experienced gar- 
dener, thousands of grape cuttings of the best varieties have been set 
out. Pear, peach, plum, persimmon and orange trees by the thousand 
have been planted, and a young nursery of choice fruit trees will 
soon be in a flourishing condition on the farm. 

In summing up this whole subject no more exhaustive or author- 
itative summary could be presented than the letter which that intel- 
ligent and experienced gentleman G. A. Forsgard, of Houston, Secre- 
tary to the District Alliance Exchange of Southern Texas, prepared 
as the result of almost half a century of study and practical experi- 
ment in the Coast Country, and which is recognized as authoritative. 
It has the endorsement of the best known truck farmers of the region. 
In this open letter Mr. Forsgard says : 

Gentlemen: — In reply to your request for some information as to 
the climate and productsof this portion of Texas, especially in reference 
to truck farming, I will give such facts as a forty-six years residence 
here have brought within my experience and observation. 

A truck farm may and should have something growing on it every 
month in the year. And this is as much as need be said about the 
climate. In order to have this the sowing should be done as follows : 

November. To start now, cabbage, spinach, peas, onions, etc., 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 27 

and red oats, clover, alfalfa, rye, barley, lettuce, turnips and radishes. 
December. Peas, carrots, cabbage, raddisht-s and parsley. Lat- 
ter part of the month potatoes may do. 

January. Turnips, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, peas, potatoes, 
and transplant onions, shallots and cabbage. 

February. Beets, mustard, leek, peas, beans, main crop of pota- 
toes, early corn. 

March. Beans, squash, cucumbers, melons, okra. Potatoes may 
still be sown, and corn, sorghum and millet. 

April. All tender vegetables may now be sown, and plants from 
hot beds, tomatoes and peppers set out ; also sweet potatoes, mil- 
let, corn, beans and okra. 

May. During this month very few vegetables can be sown, but 
where potatoes, onions and other crops have been taken off, corn, 
mellons, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, etc., maybe planted ; also 
some varieties of cabbage, late Italian cauliflower, sweet potatoes, 
cow peas, sorghum and black eyed peas. 

June. If the weather is favorable plant and sow same as in May, 
but the most of the time will be demanded by the growing crop. 

July. Bush and pole beans, corn, sweet potatoes, millet, broom 
corn, cow peas, etc., may still be planted, and seeds of cabbage, cauli- 
flower, etc., should be sown in cold frames; for the fall garden sow 
cow peas. 

August. Carrots, celery, potatoes, shallots, millet and peas. 

September. Early peas, beans, parsnips, salsify, onions, kale, 
and spinach. Set out cabbage, etc. 

October. Onions, marrowfat peas, cow peas, salsify, oats, bar- 
ley and rye may be sown. 

The list might be enlarged but enough has been said to give the 
intelligent truck farmer a hint as to what class of vegetables or prod- 
ucts are suitable in this southeast Texas Coast Country for each 
season or every month in the year, and from which a selection can be 
made for an intelligent and practical succession or rotation cf crops. 

Strawberry plants should be set out this month or as soon after 
as land is in condition, but any time from September to April will do. 

Trees of all kinds should be transplanted as soon after growth 
has stopped as possible, but may be done successfully as late as Feb- 
ruary. 

Nearly all kinds of clover and grass do best if sown in the fall 
months. 

It is of course understood that hot beds, cold frames and like pro- 
tection and helps are desirable and necessary for the forwarding of 
crops. 



28 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 

Every farmer knows the time that each product named will re- 
quire to mature, but 1 will say from two to six months, or an average 
of three months. From this you will see that after making due al- 
lowance for variations of seasons and time for preparing the ground, 
still three crops can be taken off or raised on the same ground every 
twelvemonths. 1 do not mean to say that three good crops will be 
raised on the same ground every year, but I do say it may and can. 
No such thing as fail. Do not think it necessary to tell a farmer how 
to farm. 

It goes without saying that in order to produce abundant and con- 
tinuous crops liberal manuring is necessary on any land. None know 
this better than our successful truck farmers near New Orleans, 
where they have the richest soil on earth ; but expensive commercial 
fertilizers are not necessarily the best. In my opinion the barnyard 
manure is equal if not better for all purposes, and the plowing under 
of clover, cow peas and other green crops, probably the best and 
cheapest of all, especially here where they grow so luxuriantly at any 
season of the year. Where forage for cattle and hogs can be so easily 
produced, and where fat beef, pork and butter bring so good returns, 
the question of barnyard manure is easily solved on a truck farm. 

In the list of vegetables named I omitted some that do not prop- 
erly belong to an ordinary farm but should still have a place in every 
farm garden, for in my opinion farming includes the raising of every- 
thing that the ground can be made to produce. If not raised for sale 
it will come in to supply the home table and save the spending of 
money for some. less palatable and less wholesome food. And right 
here I must mention henberries and dairy fruit as among the most de- 
sirable products of a farm for home consumption, and any place where 
chickens, eggs, milk and butter are not constant "companions of the 
breakfast table" should not be called a farm, especially where the 
means of support for hens and cows are as easily obtained as in this 
section 

I must say that I would not consider a farm suitable or desirable 
as a home for young or old without fruit and flowers, but cheerless as 
a landscape without sunshine. And here where it can be had with so 
little care every farm worthy of the name of " home " should be sur- 
rounded by the evidences of refinement and taste, which beget cheer- 
fulness and health. Such as roses, jessamines, crape-myrtle, olean- 
ders, figs, scuppernongs, plums, peaches, pomegranates are all at home 
here, besides cinnamon, arrow root, cardimon, ginger, pineapple, 
kaki, guava, oranges and many other tropical fruit, flower and foliage 
plants which, if not profitable, still deserve a place in every farm 
yard for their beauty and consequently m()r;il and healthful inlluence 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 29 

In reply to the stereotyped question, "Which will be the most 
profitable branch of agriculture for any one to follow in this Coast 
Country, and what is the soil best adapted for?" 1 will say, that 
which you best understand. You can find land and locations suited 
to fruit, melons, truck, dairy, or any branch you best understand. 
If you understand your business you will know when you see the 
land if it is suited for you or not. If you do not, the fact that some-one 
else has made a grand success is no evidence that you will, any more 
than if some one was to say to me: " Ole Bull made money and a 
world wide fame by playing the violin ; here is a fiddle, go and do like- 
wise." Shall 1 try ? The climate and soil is here, " all over in spots" 
through the Gulf Coast Country, and I have lived here since 1848. 
1 know the land and climate as well as any one, having accumulated 
considerable experience if nothing else. I may and probably will live 
long enough to see this Gulf Coast Country " a little Eden " (except- 
ing apples), and think all that is required to make it so is a little 
money, a little energy and intelligence enough to push the nauseating 
weeds and tenacious cocklebur from the yard and fence corner and re- 
place them with the fragrant jessamine, brilliant canna, stately ban- 
ana and the numerous lovely shrubs, vines and foliage plants which 
only need a chance to grow equally rampant. " A hint is as good as 
a word," but " a word to the wise is sufficient." 

G. A. FORSGARD." 



CEREALS AND FIELD CROPS. 



The fertile lands of the Coast Country produce from three-quart- 
ers to a bale and a half of cotton to the acre. Last fail the writer 
met and talked with W. T. Taylor, of Wharton. He and his brother 
cultivate 2,000 acres, and on the rich, black soil of their farm they 
raised eighty busliels of corn to the acre both in '94 and '95. 
In spite of the dry weather of the past season — the first drouth, Mr. 
Taylor says, that he has known in thirty years in the Coast Coun- 
try — they raised 600 bales of cotton on 750 acres in Jefferson 
County as high as thirty-nine bales have been raised on twenty-nine 
acres, but the more profitable rice crop has driven it out of the field. 
The entire Coast Country is adapted to cotton growing. The import- 
ance of cotton in our foreign trade relations can be appreciated from 
the simple statement that since 1875 our exports of this staple have 
been valued at $3,800,000,000, while the total exports of wheat and 
flour combined for the same period have been $2,500,000,000, showing 
a difference of $ij 300,000,000, or over fifty per cent in favor of cot- 
ton. Moreover, during the same period we have exported about 
$200,000,000 of manufactured cotton goods, making the full value 
really $4,000,000,000. Compared with the exports of wheat, flour 
and corn combined, the value of which, since 1875, has been $3,100,- 
000,000, there is a- difference in favor of cotton of $9CX),ooo,ooo. 
Going back to 1820, it is found that the total value of flour and wheat 
exported for the last seventy-four years is $3,913,000,000, or $100,- 
000,000 less than the value of the cotton export during the last 
eighteen years. Instead of these exports decreasing, it is but natural 
to suppose that they will gradually increase, and as they increase the 
demand will grow in proportion. Many of the older states that were 
once great producers of cotton are raising less of the staple yearly on 
account of the soil wearing out by continuous use, thus necessitating 
the opening up of new sections for the cultivation of cotton. At pres- 
ent no section of the south offers greater inducements to the cotton 
planter than the gulf coast of Texas. The land is all new and splend- 
idly adapted to cotton, while the climate is unexcelled. Another great 
advantage to be derived from raising cotton is the use to which ihe 
seed can be put -an advantage not known until a few years ago. 
Aside from the oil that is taken from the seed it is an excellent feed 
for cattle, and nothing fattens cattle quicker than cotton seed meal 
and hulls, the hulls acting as a roughness, just as fodder does when fed 
with corn. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS- 



31 




32 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

Throughout all the coast region there are public gins where the 
farmer can have the seed removed from the staple and the cotton 
baled. There are also cotton seed oil mills, as notably at Cuero, 
which created a staple market for the seed which is a large source of 
revenue, being ordinarily equal to $8 per bale. With cotton at pre- 
vailing prices the yield of a bale to the acre is equivalent to ^40 or 
$45 per acre. During the past year a great deal of the long staple 
Sea Island cotton was grown in the neighborhood of Port Lavaca, the 
seed being imported direct from South Carolina. The experiments 
carried on with Sea Island cotton during previous years were so suc- 
cessful that the acreage was largely increased this year, and two 
roller gins were put in by enterprising farmers to handle this valuable 
staple. The coast lands of Carolina and Georgia, on which the Sea 
Island crop is now produced, are fertilized at an average cost of $5 
per acre. The Texas coast has rich virgin soil, and farmers escape 
this tax and can distance their eastern competitors, and many predict 
that in the next five years the credit of being the first Sea Island cotton 
market of the world will be transferred from Charleston, S. C, to 
Galveston or Houston. Another advantage that the Texas coast 
farmer has is the cheapness of labor. Mexican cotton pickers can be 
brought in by the hundreds from counties west. Last fall these peo- 
ple picked common cotton at wages ranging from twenty-five to fifty 
cents per hundred pounds It will pay to give seventy-five cents per 
hundred for picking fine cotton. On the Atlantic coast the phosphate 
industry has created a demand for colored labor at fair wages, and 
last fall the planters were compelled to pay from $1 to ^1.50 per 
hundred pounds. 

Sugar cane is one of the most profitable crops on the rich Brazos 
bottom lands, and it is estimated that there are a million acres capable 
of cultivation in this crop. In the center of it, at Sugarland, con- 
venient of access is the great Cunningham sugar mill and refinery. 
Sugar cane is one of the most profitable as well as one of the most re- 
liable crops that can be grown anywhere. It yields a profit of from 
$50 to $70 per acre to the grower, one acre of ground turning off 
twenty tons of cane where it is well and thoroughly cultivated. 

To plant an acre of cane requires from four to five tons of seed 
cane worth, say, $4.00 per ton; including labor of planting, $5.00 
per ton. As planting is necessary only every third or fourth year, 
the expense of planting may be estimated annually at from $6.00 to 
$8.00 per acre. After planting, the expense of cultivation is very 
little greater than the same acreage in cotton. 

The drawback to the extension and popularity of cane growing 
heretofore has been the large amount of capital required to erect and 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 33 

equip the necessary sugar houses and plant for converting the cane 
into sugar and syrup. Only the wealthy were able to engage in the 
business, but with the inauguration of the "central factory system," 
so well and successfully operated in Cuba, and now being introduced 
with equal success in Louisiana, by which the growing of the cane, 
and the manufacture of sugar are separated, the cultivation of sugar 
cane in this section is destined to become one of the most popular 
and profitable branches of farming. Under this system the farmer 
can grow ten acres or five hundred acres of cane as may suit his 
ability and contract the same to the factory at so much per ton de- 
livered. This system also enables many owners of sugar lands to 
rent them to tenant farmers. 

Though this industry is only in its infancy in Texas, only about 
1 5,cxx) acres being planted in cane, yet the Texas sugar crop last 
year sold for $1,500,000; an average of nearly $100.00 per acre. 
One man in the Texas coast sold last year $315,000 worth of sugar 
off his plantation. 

Mr. J. H. B. House, owner of the "Areola Plantation," near 
Houston, says: "The average profit on the Areola plantation per 
acre per annum, in cultivating sugar cane, is $60. The crop is never 
failing, though some years it is much larger than others." 

Throughout the greater portion of the Coast Country sorghum is 
grown for feed, for stock and for syrup. 

Mr. R. F. Jett, of Tarkington Prairie, Liberty county, stated 
that from one acre he would make 250 gallons of syrup, for which he 
found ready sale at 40 cents. His expenses were computed at $25, 
which deducted, leaves a clear gain of $75 from one acre. He is 
now preparing to plant eight or ten acres next year. Throughout 
almost the whole region sorghum is grown, not only as a nutritious 
feed for stock but for the syrup which it yields. Today sorghum is 
worth 25 to 30 cents per gallon by the car load, and if the cane was 
raised for the syrup alone it would be a largely profitable crop. 

Aside from its value for molasses, the seed is fast becoming an 
article of trade. It is fast taking the place of millet for food. Many 
farmers are sowing it for forage for stock, and the results are satis- 
factory. It is the experience of many farmers and stockmen that 
cattle can be fed through the entire winter on cane fodder, and 
come out better in the spring than on any other food, except 
corn. A seed firm reports that they paid $1.10 per bushel foi the 
first crop ever raised in that vicinity, and have paid as high as $1.50 
for cane seed. 

Millet is a reliable crop, producing from two to four ions per acre 
and marketable at $10.00 per ton. 



34 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 

Sweet Cassava is another of the money making crops which can 
be successfully grown here. Cassava is a name which should prop- 
erly apply only to the purified starch derived from the roots of the 
plant, but it has passed into general use to designate the plant 
itself. The yield under favorable conditions is astonishing, one 
plant of one years growth weighed fifty pounds, being at the rate of 
more than 1,500 bushels to the acre. Eight hundred to one thousand 
bushels per acre can be confidently counted on. It is very produc- 
tive; it has a remarkable immunity from drouth, flood and disease.; it 
is easy to harvest, easy of cultivation and occupies the ground dur- 
ing the whole growing season to the exclusion of noxious plants. 
The pork made from feeding it is solid and delicate as chicken, and 
the lard is as firm as that of corn-fed hogs. It produces a good flow 
of rich milk and firm, golden butter. From one acre of cassava 
enough, roots may be obtained to fatten ten hogs or feed three milch 
cows during the entire year. 

Soil suitable for corn is appropriate for cassava. It must not, 
however, be wet land or land subject to overflow, as that will rot the 
tubers. Frost, if severe, will kill the plant so effectually that but a 
small proportion will sprout again. By saving the stumps when the 
roots are dug and planting them they will sprout and grow, though 
the tops be killed two or three times. There are about 2740 hills 
per acre. On land that will not grow more than five bushels of corn 
per acre, cassava will average from three to five pounds per hill, or 
at a very moderate estimate four to five tons per acre. 

The cassava root contains a large proportion of starch, twenty- 
five per cent of the weight of the fresh root. 

The profit which the farmer may make from growing this 
crop and the manufacturer from using it should be based upon a 
yield of four to five tons per acre. If it be desired to make starch 
from the plant, we may suppose as a minimum rate of yield, that 
twenty per cent of the weight of the fresh root may be obtained as 
merchantable starch of a high grade. On a yield of four tons per 
acre this would amount to eight-tenths of a ton or 1600 pounds. 
Compare this with the weight of starch obtained from Indian corn 
producing forty bushels per acre. The yield of merchantable starch 
of a high grade may be placed at thirty-five pounds per bushel, which 
for forty bushels would amount to 1400 pounds. It is thus seen that 
the rate of yield per acre in the matter of starch from cassava would 
be fully equal if not superior to that from Indian corn. 

If the matter of the manufacture of glucose be considered 
the estimate is even more favorable. Experiments have shown 
that after the removal of the bark the whole root may be rasped and 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 35 

treated directly for the manufacture of glucose, either by inversion 
with diastase or by treating with dilute sulphuric acid, hi the latter 
case not only were the starch and sugar present in the root obtained 
as glucose, but also a considerable quantity of the digestible fibre. 
It is not an extravagant statement, therefore, to suppose that fully 
thirty per cent on the weight of the fresh root could be obtained as 
commercial glucose. This would give a yield per acre of 1.2 tons, or 
2400 pounds. These statements are made, of course, subject to the 
practical determinations of the manufacture of glucose and starch 
from this plant. Attempts have already been made in the manufac- 
ture of starch, but of course the full development of this industry 
must await the investment of capital and the necessary adjustment 
of new machinery to new processes. 

The conclusion reached by scientists and practical experiment- 
ers with respect to this new plant are as as follows: 

1. Cassava can be cultivated with safety and profit in the great- 
er part of the peninsular of Florida, Southern Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana and Texas. 

2. It will yield with fair treatment on the sand soils from four 
to five tons per acre. 

3. It will give when properly manufactured, from twenty to 
twenty-five per cent of the weight of the fresh root in starch of high 
grade. 

4. The starch is naturally in a pure state and no chemicals of 
any kind are necessary in its manufacture. 

5. The starch resembles in its physical properties the starch of 
Maize and can be used as a substitute therefore in all cases. 

6. An excellent article of tapioca can be prepared from the 
starch of the cassava plant. 

7. Glucose can be prepared directly from the starch, or more 
profitably from the pulp of the peeled root. 

8. The plant furnishes an excellent human and cattle food, de- 
ficient however, in nitrogen. It would make a well balanced ration 
for cattle when mixed with one-fourth of its weight of cotton seed oil 
cake. 

One of the most promising of the new crops for which the soil 
and climate of the Coast Country is shown to be adapted is canaigre. 
This is a native plant of the southwestern territories and northern 
Mexico. It is a species of wild rhubarb and resembles that well- 
known eastern plant in appearance, though very far different in 
quality. The element of value in this vegetable is tannic acid, and 
the demand for it comes from the leather industry of the world. Can- 
aigre grows wild in portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Call- 



36 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 



fornia and Old Mexico, and when found in that condition produces a 
crop of three to eight tons per acre once in two years. But under 
irrigation and proper cultivation it produces two crops each year, 
with an annual yield of twenty tons per acre, according to a good 
authority. When it is stated that shipments thus far sold have 
brought ^65 per ton in Liverpool. It is little wonder that some farm- 
ers and land owners are dreaming of great pecuniary rewards for their 
foresight in pushing the new crop into the market. 

It can be said with absolute assurance that the commercial \alue 
of canaigre is established beyond all question. It is conceded by all 




A Coast Country Cotton Gin. 

experts that the quality of tanic acid extracted from the canaigre root 
is far superior to that obtained from any other source. Furthermore 
the supply of hemlock and tanbark oaks has constantly decreased, 
until of late it has become alarmingly sparse. Canaigre seems to 
have come to the front just at the time when it was unmistakably 
demanded. Perhaps the most convincing endorsement of the com- 
mercial value of canaigre is the testimony of the distinguished Pro^f. 
Eitner, head of the Vienna Research station for the leather trade, 
who examined it from the standpoint of a practical tanner and said : 
"1 consider this article especially adapted for tanning uppers, fine 
saddlery and fancy leathers, it can be used alone or in connection 
with other materials." He also recommended it for its quickness 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 37 

and thoroughness in tanning, color, beauty, consistency and pliabil- 
ity. He also states that the price laid down in Vienna — 18 florins per 
hundred kilos (about $65 per ton), — is quite reasonable. In fact he 
has everything to say in its favor and nothing against it. 

A good sandy loann with moderate cultivation is necessary, but 
equally large crops have been produced on heavy soils where the 
roots are planted shallow and irrigated. The tubers are planted in 
rows 30 inches apart and 9 inches apart in the row, and require about 
one ton of roots per acre, from which it is estimated that the first 
season a yield of 10 tons of green roots may be obtained, and the 
second and succeeding seasons 15 or even 20 tons. 

In a wild state the plant makes its growth during the winter and 
early spring, and by June ist has seeded and the tops are dead. The 
tubers lie dormant until the winter rains, when the plants make their 
appearance once more. A short, quick season of growth seems to be 
necessary for this plant. 

In the Coast Country the time for planting is September or Oc- 
tober and the plant dies in June the harvest being taken in the in- 
termediate time, so that it does not interfere with the regular crops. 
If planted late in the spring, leaves will appear and lie down at the 
usual time, and the root will lie dormant throughout the summer, be- 
ginning the formation of a new crop at the regular season, with no 
apparent advantage or disadvantage as compared with roots planted 
just before growing season. 

The time of harvesting begins after the plant has made its full 
growth, and it has been found that the per cent, of tannin increases 
as the tubers lie dormant in the ground, but the increase is very 
gradual after May. 

The preparation of the land for planting and the cultivation of 
the crop are very similar to the methods used for Irish potatoes or 
other root crops. The cost of cultivating an acre is estimated at 
$16 50, which includes the irrigating and harvesting. 

As prepared for market the roots are sliced into pieces about one- 
twentieth to one-fourth of an inch thick and dried in the sun. When 
thus prepared they loose about two-thirds their weight, and the dried 
product contains from 20 to 35 per cent, tannin. Another method of 
preparation is by the making of an extract from the roots, which con- 
tains from 60 to 65 per cent tannin. 

The supply of wild canaigre is rapidly becoming exhausted. 
From January ist, i8gi, to October 31, 1892, there were shipped to 
Europe, over the Southern Pacific Railway, 370 car loads of the sliced 
and dried roots valued at $40 to $65 per ton. 

Ramie of an unusually long and fine fibre can be grown. Mr. 



38 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS- 

William H. Parmenter, of New Orleans, who has made the subject 
one of special study, said that four crops a year could be taken off, 
He said it would cost $40 an acre to procure the roots for planting, 
but they would last a long time. There would be four cuttings each 
year yielding a total of 63 tons, making about $96 or $ 100 to the acre. 
The climate and soil of the Coast Country are ideal for its growth. 
The frost touches the stem or plant but not the roots, which produce 
as if not touched. There is a demand for the plants product over the 
whole country. It is not limited to any part of the world. 

It would pay the farmers from $40 to $100 an acre per annum. 
To every 1,000 acres a four thousand spindle factory can be advan- 
tageously established and operated. Thus the farmer finds a market 
for his product, the factory material to work on and the laborers 
something to do. 

The finest fiber in the world is produced in Mississippi, Louisiana 
and Texas. The moist climate suits the ramie. No insect or worm 
has ever been known to trouble it. It is no more taxing on the soil 
than cotton. In case the farmer wants to get rid of the roots it can 
easily be ploughed. 

That tobacco of a superior quality, equal in some notable in- 
stances to the products of Cuban fields, c?.r. L^ .dised in the Coast 
Country, is an assured fact. Mr. E. L, Dunlap, of Victoria, showed 
the writer some samples of tobacco which he had raised, and which 
experts were unable to tell from Havana leaf submitted at the same 
time. At the beginning of the year Mr. Dunlap secured some seed 
from Havana and he took off three crops in 1895 ^^om the one plant- 
ing. The average of the first two crops was from 1,500 to 2,000 
pounds per acre, and at prevailing prices it was worth 45 cents per 
pound. 

The idea that tobacco grown here is not so strong and well 
flavored as that from elsewhere is a mistake, because when properly 
handled and cured it has both strength and flavor. Texas tobacco is 
like all other kinds. It must go through sweats and other curing pro- 
cesses to bring out its qualities, but its qualities, when brought out, are 
perfect and will sell anywhere. In East Texas and along the coast 
of Texas tobacco should be cultivated extensively and with big profit. 

O. A. Smith, a reliable resident of Montgomery County, writes: 
" Tobacco culture here is a success beyond a doubt. It has been 
grown here for several years past by three or four parties. Up to 
this year, though, we have only had a small per cent, of the crop 
wrappers on account of worms. This year all the tobacco growers 
use trained turkeys and they do away with hand worming entirely. 
The crop this year is absolutely clear of worm holes and 40 to 50 per 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 39 

cent, of the crop will be wrappers, the rest good fillers. Last year's 
crop was sold in Chicago at 35 cents per pound. We were after- 
ward offered 42^ cents per pound for it in New York. Everyone we 
sent samples to pronounced it superior to Florida tobacco in flavor." 

There is no danger in losing money in any of the varieties. If 
the Barley, or Pryor or any of the large and heavy varieties are 
planted, the great number of pounds which they produce to the acre 
will more than cover all expenses in raising and marketing. If the 
finer fibered varieties be planted, such as Connecticut, Cuban or Su- 
matra, the high price they command will more than make up for the 
smaller number of pounds per acre. 

Rice is one of the most profitable of the Coast Country crops. 
Its cultivation is identical with that of wheat, with the exception of 
the flooding of the fields, a simple and not expensive requisite. The 
sandy loam so generally found in the Coast Country raises great rice 
crops. It is harvested as is wheat, the same machinery being 
used. Improved machinery for ditching purposes is within easy 
reach and can be had under contract at a reasonable outlay, with a 
charge of so much per yard for ditching and making levees. 

The most remarkable fact in connection with the culture of rice 
and wheat is the price of lands on which the crops are grown. 
Wheat lands from ^40 to $100 an acre; rice lands $3.00 to $5.00; the 
former crop yielding $8.00 to $15.00 an acre, the latter $30.00 to 
$50,00 an acre. In southeast Louisiana, where the crop is universally 
cultivated these same lands sell at from $10.00 to $40.00 an acre. 
In the Coast Country of Texas they are still to be had at an average 
price of $5.00. 

In speaking of profits derived from rice culture, it would be im- 
possible in an article of this kind to convince the reader of the small 
outlay of money and labor necessary in the cultivation of rice, but if 
the reader is interested and will take the trouble to investigate, he 
will discover that more than two-thirds of the market price of rice is 
clear profit to the farmer. 

For ten years past the average price of rice in the market has 
been three dollars per barrel. The crop runs from eight to sixteen 
barrels per acre and for purposes of brief illustration we can take 
12 barrels as a conservative estimate. One acre at $3.00 per bar- 
rel is $36.00, 100 acres would be $3,600, less expenses, which vary 
from $8.00 to $12.00, and to be safe take $10.00 per acre or $1,000 
to the 100 acres. The price quoted represents the New Orleans 
market, consequently the freight, 36 cents per barrel, is to come out, 
or $4.32 per acre which is $432.00 on 100 acres. Thus we find the 
total expenses $1,432.00, to be deducted from $3,600.00, which gives 



40 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS- 

a net profit of $2.i68.cx) off of loo acres. These profit figures can 
be considerably reduced and still greatly exceed any other crop 
grown. 

Early last spring Mr. C. C. Gibbs, Land Commissioner of the 
Southern Pacific at San Antonio, who has done much to bring the re- 
sources of Texas to the notice of prospective settlers, and who for 
years has been indefatigable in investigating every point that could 
promote the interest of the home seeker, sent outacircular of inquiry 
to farmers in Liberty and Chambers counties particularly to elicit in- 
formation respecting the degree of success attained in the cultivation 
of rice. The circular letter was as follows: 

"Will you kindly write stating where you moved from, and 
when did you buy your land, about what time you began breaking it, 
and when did you commence to plant.-* What kind of soil is your 
land.'' How many acres are you cultivating and what kind of crops 
are you growing.^ State as near as you can about what the yield 
per acre will be, conditions favorable to harvest time. If you have 
done any ditching or made levees for rice. What has been the cost.' 
Any other information not called for in this letter will be appreci- 
ated." 

Among the replies received, all dated April or July 1895, we 
quote the following: 

Raywood, Liberty County, Texas 

We came to Liberty County from McPherson County, Kansas, 
the fall of 1893. The climate here is not as cold in winter or as 
warm in summer as there. We are farming rice exclusively. Our 
rice averaged fifty bushels per acre last year. What I have seen of 
pears, peaches, plums and grapes I am convinced in a few years one 
can have all they want. We grow garden vegetables almost the 
year round. We use well water at twenty two feet and it is good. 

L. W. WELCH. 

Devers, Liberty County, Texas. 
Planted eighty acres of rice on new land. Cost of ditching and 
leveling $75.00 Rainfall suflkient without irrigation. Planted in 
March and April and sowed by hand. Sowed li bushels per acre. 
Crop is good and will average 121 barrels per acre. 

W. A. abshier. 

Devers, Liberty, County, Texas. 

We bought this section in December last and commenced to plow 

about March ist. The soil is what we call a deep black soil, with 

some sand, what the people in this neighborhood call a sandy marsh, 

and it is very easily worked. We have 100 acres broke and com- 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 41 

menced to sow about the loth of May. Eighty acres, which we put 
in first, is all covered with water ten to twelve inches and stands hip 
high and very thick and what old rice growers say looks extra fine. 
This being our first year we are unable to make an estimate. The 
other twenty acres were not planted until June 28th, and is five or six 
incfies high Our ditches and levees cost us in the neighborhood of 
$12500. We are from Iowa. 

BuRDETT Brothers. 

Dayton, Liberty County, Texas. 

I am a native of Canada but came here from Wisconsin May ist, 
1891, and located on this farm January ist, 1893. I like the climate, 
it is not to be compared to any part of the north. My chief crop has 
been rice, of which I have made a great success, it paying about 
$45.00 per acre with same expense as wheat or oats, and is sowed 
either broadcast or with a drill and cut with a self binder and thresh- 
ed with a separator. In this state it is ready for the market, but I 
go still further and mill it ready for the merchant, which is still more 
profitable. We have now 800 acres under the plow. Corn does fine, 
also millet, which makes two tons per acres and two crops per year. 
My pears, peaches, plums, apricots and figs are doing fine. A great 
many northern people are settling around me. 1 am also starting to 
raise ramie, and which the lowest estimate promises $80.00 per acre, 
and when once planted is there forever. 

R. A. KlERPSTEAi>. 

Turtle Bayou, Chambers County, Texas. 
Yours relating to the productions of this county and other matters 
of special interest to emigrants just received. In reply ha\'e to state 
that I am not able to give any answer, from the fact that 1 did not 
move out here till August 1st last, consequently have raised no crop 
except a few Irish potatoes last fall Set out strawberries December 
24th, 1894. Commenced eating the berries in March 1895. Broke 
the turf for garden December 1894, and since March 25th, have had 
plenty of garden truck and during April have been enjoying new Irish 
potatoes and peas. Every thing in garden is doing fine. Have some 
field corn two feet tall. 

A. G. ROBB. 

Ferryman, Texas. 

We arrived here December 28th, 1894. Am farming fourteen 

miles north of Liberty and our crop consists principally of corn and 

cotton. My corn was planted about the 12th of March and in the 

drill with northern seed corn, and the average height is about ten 



42 



THE COAST COUNTRY' OF TEXAS. 



feet, 1 estimate the yield at thirty to tiiirty-five bushels per acre. 
Corn Lut short one-fourth by excessive rain. My cotton bids fair to 
yield half to three-quarters of a bale per acre. This land has been 
in constant cultivation since i860. Soil is a gray, sandy, easily 
worked. 

James H. Rankins. 




An Eight Year Old Pear Tree. 



Liberty , Texas. 

We have 280 acres of rice on new land; all broke in the last nine 
months. Began planting in April and finished the last of May. Our 
land is heavy black land. We have two 4 inch artesian wells at a 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 43 

depth of 267 feet and they flow 600,000 gallons every twenty-four 
hours. We are satisfied this class of water will answer all purposes? 
but our supply is insufficient for the acreage. We contemplate sinking 
additional wells for next year's crop. The yield in some portions of 
our field will run, estimated fifteen barrels per acre, and in other 
places much less on account of shortage in the water supply. Our 
ditching and levees cost about $2.00 per acre. 

Neyland and Douglass. 

Devers, Liberty County, Texas. 

I have about 500 acres in rice. This is the second year for 170 
acres; the balance in new land. Commenced plowing about March 
ist, began sowing 9th of April and finished 27th of May. Sowed 
with a broadcast seeder. In Louisiana we aim to put one bushel per 
acre, but 1 sowed thicker here, as I was told rains did not set in as 
early and some would die out. The ditching was partly done when 
we came on the farm. 1 think for the uses of ditches alone cost five 
cents per rod for single ditch and ten cents for double ditch. I pre- 
sume you want to know the cost of levees. With a Burton road grad- 
er and ten pairs of good oxen and three men you can put up from half 
to three quarters of a mile per day and under favorable circum- 
stances a mile can be graded. This has been a very favorable year 
for rice culture so far. The plant stands four feet high and very 
thick on the ground. Our earliest sowing will be ready to cut the 
last of August. All things remaining favorable, think we are safe in 
expecting twelve to fifteen barrels per acre. We have marsh land, 
and it is black, tough and sticky. I do not know of any reason why 
rice will not grow in Texas as well as Louisiana. There is not as 
much rice land in Texas as in Louisiana and not as much danger of 
being cut off from water supply and drainage, as one is as essential 
as the other. 1 came from Kentucky to Louisiana six years ago and 
to this county this year, 

George T. B. Hamilton. 

Rice was not experimented with in the eastern counties of th-:- 
coast country until about four years ago. Indeed it has only been 
seven or eight years since the staple began to grow commercially' in 
southwest Louisiana which is now the greatest center of production. 
The \alue of the crop and the success obtained by their neighbors in 
Louisiana, induced the farmers in Jefferson County to give rice a 
trial four years ago, and the results were of such a satisfactory na- 
ture that in 1892 the acreage wiis largely increased and the number 
of rice farms opened quadrupled. In 1892 the total number of acres 
planted in that countv in rice was about 2c;oo, with the result of an 



44 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

average yield per acre of fifteen barrels, the market price of which 
ranged from $2.00 to ^4.00 per barrel. This is a crop especially 
suited to the lands of the county, and as these lands can be bought at 
from $5.00 to ^10.00 per acre the home seeker will at once perceive 
the advantage. 

Until 1892 rice was exclusively an experimental crop in Jeffer- 
son, and the methods of cultivation were crude and imperfect, but 
even under these circumstances the yield was so bountiful that in the 
year mentioned a few farmers ventured to plant it for profit, and the 
results were so satisfactory that in 1893 there were 2845 acres put in 
cultivation. The yield averaged fifteen barrels to the acre, and was 
marketed at ^2. 50 per barrel, the gross value of the crop being in the 
neighborhood of $100,000. it might be well to say here that $2,50 
per barrel is an unreasonably low price for rice, but the profits that 
accrued to the farmers even at that price, were so satisfactory that 
last year — 1894 — the acreage was more than doubled. The season 
of 1894 was not at all favorable for rice growing, there being insuffi- 
cient rain when the plant was most in need of its peculiar nourishment 
but this is a disaster that can be averted by proper irrigation, and 
the farmers are taking this precaution, as it is comparatively inex- 
pensive, owing to the numerous rivers, bayous and lakes whose wa- 
ters are easily obtained. The yield for 1894 is, of course, not so large 
per acre as that of 1893, but the increase in price will make profits 
to the farmer somewhat larger. 

As shown by an official table, the acreage in 1894 was 5126, 
the yield was not less than eight and one-half barrels to the acre, 
which put the total crop at 43,571 barrels. The prevailing market 
price was $3.50 to $4.50 per barrel, which would place the gross 
value of Jefferson County's crop in the neighborhood of 1^175,000, 
which is four times greater than the aggregate sum derived from the 
sale of cattle from the county ranches that year, and it is a figure 
which, when the acreage is considered, makes rice the most profit- 
able product of Texas soil, aside from the growing of vegetables 
and fruit. 

No more favorable conditions exist for the successful growing of 
fine stock of all kinds than are to be found in the Coast Country. The 
winters being winters in name only, the stock grower does not labor 
six months in the year to raise feed with which to "carry his stock 
through" the other six. Alfalfa and many of the tame grasses have 
been successfully grown here for years, but only as an experiment or 
in limited quantities, the vast acres of unfilled lands covered with 
rich growths of natural grass serving to pasture native stock through 
the year. But with the settlement of the country there is a constant 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 45 

and growing demand for a better class of stock all over the state, and 
full bloods of any breeds are scarce. With the war being waged on 
the long-horned cow, razor-back hog and mustang pony, the better 
breeds are gaining a lasting victory. 

The profits of stock raising are best illustrated by example. 
Pasturage on large tracts is ordinarily figured on the basis of 1 5 cents 
an acre. Cows this fall were worth $14.00; 4 year old steers $25.00. 
It costs from $6.00 to $6.25 to ship a 1000 pound steer to the Chicago 
market, where it brings three and a half cents per pound on the hoof. 
In figuring the profit of stock raising the residents usually estimate a 
cow at $10.00; the interest on the four acres it requires to pasture 
her (ten per cent on a valuation of $6.00 per acre) at $2.40. Total 
cost of cow and pasture $12.40; increase one calf which sells for $5.00 
with the cow left. 

Dairying and poultry raising are destined to become leading pur- 
suits, and so long as broilers find ready sale in such close markets as 
Houston and Galveston at from forty to sixty cents apiece, milk ten 
cents per quart and butter forty cents per pound, so long will the 
profits continue enormous. 

Next in importance to the cotton crop is the successful and prof- 
itable management of a general farm in the Coast Country is a crop of 
corn. This cereal with good cultivation may be depended upon for 
from forty to seventy-five bushels to the acre, and as this is natural- 
ly a hog country, the intelligent breeder of a better class of porkers 
finds here ample scope for this industry, and profitable remuneration 
for his labor. Corn in the lower coast region can be and often is, 
planted in the middle of January and if frost killed it the farmer still 
had plenty of time to replant and still raise two crops on the ground. 
Hogs are fed through the summer on sorghum cut green, the crop be- 
ing cut over two or three times, and in the fall are fattened on 
corn. 

A Velasco correspondent of the "Houston Post" recently said: 

"First years" sod prairie land in Texas is not considered good for 
corn, but yesterday Mr. Bernard Karl finished gathering 3142 bushels 
from fifty-five acres near Velasco, that up to last February had al- 
ways been an open range. In February he broke the turf two inches 
deep, cross broke it four to five inches deep, harrowed it and after 
bedding with a cultivator planted a late March crop and cultivated 
shallow and often. The yield and field were carefully measured, 
making over 57 bushels to the acre. 

The Gulf Coast Country of Texas is not adapted to the growing 
of wheat, though wheat, barley and rye in most parts of the middle 
coast country will make a fair crop three \ears out of four, but 



46 



THE COAST COUNTRY' CF TEXAS. 



oats is a prolific crop and heavy yields are often reported. Twenty- 
four bushels is an average yield per acre and the average price per 



W--'^' 


'■■"'iv 


' V '^ ' ' 


■■111 mw ii ij— 


l- 




















bushel twenty-two cents, l-rt-queniiy yieiLb or be\ciUy-n\-e. eighty 
and f\en ninety bushels have been reported. 



CITIES AND TOWNS OF THE GULF COAST. 



There is an admirable distribution of thrifty towns all through 
the Coast country, affording both local markets, admirable society 
and facilities for cultivation, while in the very center of the region, 
connected with all its parts by rail and water lines, are the growing 
cities of Houston and Galveston, affording every luxury and advan- 
tage of large urban population, it is only necessary to refer in brief 
to the two great industrial and trade centers, for information relative 
to them is easily within reach of any one desiring to investigate the 
subject more fully. 

Eleven trunk lines of railroad enter Houston, i^ording ample 
means for traffic with half of the vast area between the Mississippi 
River and the Pacific Coast. The roads actually centering here have a 
mileage of 9,000 miles, and the connecting systems a mileage of 31,- 
000. The city has a population of sixty thousand, estimated, who 
have prospered not alone because the city has become both a great 
railway and a vast manufacturing center, but because it is also at the 
head of tide-water navigation on Buffalo Bayou, with ship channel 
navigation to the Gulf of Mexico, and through which is carried about 
500,000 bales of cotton annually. The city was founded in 1837 It 
has a healthful and enjoyable sub-tropical climate; mean summer tem- 
perature of ninety degrees, an average winter temperature of sixty 
degrees; sweet, pure and soft artesian water; a low death rate— only 
nine to the thousand; thirty miles of paved streets — vitrified brick, 
stone and wood; no stagnant water', and an admirable sewerage sys- 
tem; handsome public and business buildings, and many beautiful 
private residences; the finest electric street railway system in the 
South; a taxable valuation of ^17,000,000, the rate being ^2 per 
$100; a high school and twelve public schools for seven thousand 
children. 

Galveston is built on the extreme east end of the island of the 
same name just off the coast. It has a population of about 50,000. 
The fmest land-locked harbor on the Gulf of Mexico has given Gal- 
veston an immense carrying trade. Here come ships from European 
and South American ports to carry away our cotton, corn and wheat 
in exchange for money or foreign commodities. 

A few years ago the great West awoke to the fact that it was 
linked to a deep-water port several hundred miles nearer the interior 
than is New York City The United States Government appropri- 
ated $6,200,000 to secure a channel of sufficient depth across the bar 



48 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

at the entrance of the bay, and now tliere is sixteen to seventeen feet 
of water at mean low tide, which will be increased to accommodate 
any craft that floats. Jetty construction was commenced in 1885, but 
work was not actively pushed until i8qo. The south jetty is six 
miles long, and the north arm has been extended two miles. During 
the five months ending January 31, 1893, there arrived at Galveston 
194 steamships, with capacity of 321,000 tons, and manned by 5,500 
sailors; also 55 sailing vessels, of 25,000 tons, and carrying 420 men 
— not including the small local craft. The clearances were nearly as 
many. In other words, the vessels regularly touching at Galveston 
can accommodate five thousand cars in and out monthly. Three 
miles of completed wharves on the bay front, with room for more, 
amply accommodate existing traffic. Immense grain elevators have 
been erected,.one of which can load four ships at once. 

Turning now for a brief glance at the lesser commercial centers 
of the coast region, we find how admirably located they are to ser\'e 
the purposes of their respective communities. We do not speak of 
them as less important than the large cities. Within the sphere of 
their influence they are every whit as important — more so, -in fact, 
because they establish the home market needful to the farmer's pros- 
perit3^ Their condition of substantial prosperity is an index to the 
character of the people and to the productive wealth of the region 
they serve. In fact, we will find nowhere more pleasant or active 
towns or finer public buildings. We can only glance hastily at a few 
of the more notable. 

Beginning with the eastern border of the coast country, we 
have, upon the banks of the Sabine River, the town of Orange, coun- 
ty seat of Orange County, 256 miles west of New Orleans, at the 
head of tide-water navigation, communicating through Sabine Pass 
with the Gulf of Mexico, eighteen miles south, and on the Southern 
Pacific railroad. The present population, six thousand, is increasing 
rapidly, especially in the country, owing to the influx of people from 
the Northern and Western States, taking advanlage of the large bod\' 
of land so excellently adapted to rice culture, cotton, vegetables, 
fruit and diversified farming. 

Orange is the principal lumber manufacturing center of the 
Southwest, having five saw mills, five planing mills, three shingle 
and stave mills, producing annually 2 50,000,000 feet of lumber and 
135,000,000 shingles. These mammoth concerns employ thousands 
of men in the mills. The success that has attended rice culture in 
the county is attracting widespread attention, and the acreage is al- 
most douMing yearly. Four years ago there was not an acre of rice 
in Orange County. This year 2,163 acres were planted. Although 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 49 

this land was not properly cultivated, the crop was beyond expecta- 
tion, yielding eight to ten barrels per acre, and netting the lucky 
farmers about $63,900. This has stimulated agricultural industry. 
Rice can be raised in Orange County without irrigation. Cotton, 
corn, wheat oats and barley yield in abundance. Vegetables of every 
variety yield three crops a year. Oranges, peaches, pears, figs and 
berries are the principal fruit products of the county. 

The mercantile and manufacturing industries of Orange do a bus- 
iness of $5,000,000 annually. 

The climate of Orange is healthful, equable and pleasant. It is 
so thoroughly drained by the Sabine and Neches Rivers, and living 
streams flowingthroughthe country into them, that the natural causes 
of sickness are reduced to a minimum. The death rate is only about 
fifteen in a thousand, and physicians report that sickness in the ma- 
jority of cases is attributable to individual carelessness and exposure 
which in many climates would kill. Winter exists only in name, it 
is like April and May in the Western and Northern States. The ther- 
m.ometer, tempered by the Gulf breeze and evenly distributed rains, 
ranges between 60 and 90 degrees during summer. The site of the 
city is high, and so perfectly drained that the streets are dry within 
six hours after the heaviest rains. 

The natural advantages of Orange have recently attracted na- 
tional attention, and the work now in progress at Sabine Pass, upon 
which an appropriation of $275,000 is being expended, is only a step 
toward the dredging of Sabine Lake so as to admit of the passage of 
steamers of the deepest draught from the Gulf to Orange. The Sa- 
bine River sounds thirty to fifty-six feet between Orange and Sabine 
Lake (a fact that is not generally known), and the dredging of the 
lake, which is only a question of a short time, will make Orange the 
only freshwater harbor in the Southwest. A shipyard has already 
been started in anticipation of this, several new railroads have been 
incorporated, and the Orange Board of Trade is daily receiving in- 
quiries from Eastern and Western manufacturers who contemplate 
availing themselves of the hitherto comparatively unknown resources 
from which so many fortunes have been amassed. 

Beaumont, twenty-one miles farther west on the Southern Pa- 
cific Railway, and at the head of tidewater on the Neuces River, has 
large and varied manufacturing interests, including three large saw 
mills and shingle mills, making over 60,000,000 feet of lumber and 
150,000,000 shingles; an improved brickmaking plant with a capaci- 
ty of 40,000 bricks and terra colta work; rice mill with a capacity of 
30,000 barrels; furniture factory, ice works, bottling works, water 
works and electric light plant, pine stave factory, stave yards, foun- 



50 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

dry and machine shop, four hotels, three newspapers, fifty business 
houses doing a business of over one milhon dollars a year. Has five 
schools, seven churches of different denominations, it is a railroad 
center, with the Texas & N. O., Sabine and East Texas and Beau- 
mont and Kansas City railroads. Agricultural products are rice and 
general farm products, oats, sugar cane and corn. Ships annually over 
two hundred million feet of lumber and twenty thousand sacks of 
rice. Rice is a new venture in this section, and great results ha\'e 
been obtained by those who have planted this cereal. W. A. Ward, 
a northern man, who has made a marked success in agriculture near 
Beaumont, in an open letter, which applies to all the region between 
the Sabine and Houston, says: 

"Lands ^e still very cheap — cheaper and on better terms than 
Uncle Sam offers — ranging in price from $2.00 to $10.00 per acre, 
and my advice to friends is to secure land soon, if you expect it at 
present prices. You ask what these lands will produce .'' 1 answer 
almost everything that grows except wheat and apples. In the place 
of the former we grow rice as the great cereal, which yields aboi.'t 
twice as much per acre and brings about twice as much per bushel 
and can be grown as cheaply as wheat. Sugar cane is also very 
profitable. Crops of either bring $50.00 per acre, while it is difficult 
to compute the income from an orchard of pear trees. At the age of 
eight years each tree yields about $25.00, and they increase fi>r 
many years. 

"Farm work can be carried on here the year round, and two 
crops of many things can be produced each year. The summers are 
long and warm, but not so excessively hot as north. Men work 
every day in the fields and in the mill yards exposed to the sun, and 
sun-stroke is not known here. 

"The temperature is more even and seldom as high as 96, and 
never so high as north during some of its "heated terms." My own 
work has been in doors largely, but others who came south last win- 
ter and spring have worked in the open fields every day this sum- 
mer, and have done more work than they were able to do north — 
their health being better here. My experience and observation is 
that northern men have no less energy here than there. 

"The change of climate usually proves beneficial to those afflict- 
ed with catarrh, lung or bowel trouble, also to dyspeptics, but is not 
so good for those inclined to biliousness. Bilious or malarial fever 
is the most common complaint here, but not so common or fatal as is 
typhoid fever north. 

"If you come south the people of Southeast Texas will treat you 
well and be glad to see you; you will find good schools and plenty of 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 5 1 

churches. My advice to all is to come first to see how you like it, 
prepared to stay long enough to get acquainted. if you cannot do 
this, bring only such stock as you can care for and feed, in part until 
they become acclimated. Bring everything else you can. Remem- 
ber you are coming to a new country, so far as farming is concern- 
ed."' 

Wharton, the county seat of Wharton County, is 6i miles 
southwest of Houston, on the east bank of the Colorado, and occu- 
pies a beautiful rise of ground some forty feet above low water in the 
river. The town was laid out in 1846, but its growth was slow until 
the advent of the New York, Texas and Mexican Railroad in 1882. 
This advent at once brought the place into prominence as the princi- 
pal business and shipping point not only for Wharton, but for Mata- 
gorda county to the south of it as well. The present* population is 
about 1700 and that of the county 10,000. The public square is 
adorned with a substantial brick court house three stories in height. 

Situated in one of the most fertile and productive counties of the 
state, possessing admirable railroad facilities, with a climate at once 
equable and healthy, the natural trading center for a locality far be- 
yond her county limits, she has no cause to apologize for either the 
character or goods of her mercantile establishments, which embrace 
full supplies in all lines. Cotton is her chief export, having shipped 
some 9,000 bales this season. While cotton is still considered the 
main cash crop, diversified farming, fruit growing and the raising of 
fine stock is rapidly gaining in favor, and will mark a new era in the 
general prosperity of both city and county. 

Several cotton gins and a grist mill are kept busy here; a fine 
brickyard is now in successful operation, which with the contemplated 
oil mill about covers the extent of manufacturing enterprises so far at 
this point. But with the large bodies of valuable timber so close at 
hand, and the raw material accumulating at our very doors, oppor- 
tunities can here be obtained by the manufacturer for the site of 
many kinds of factories and shops superior to those of larger cities, 
and the people of Wharton are prepared to welcome any who may 
propose to make this location the seat of their operations and to afford 
them every assistance which is in their power. 

Victoria, the capital of the county of that name, is one of the 
most sightly and progressive towns of the whole Coast Country, it 
is one of the wealthiest towns of its size in the country and possesses 
the most beautiful court house the writer has ever seen in a country 
town — a model structure of cream stone, of admirable architecture 
and finished throughout in native woods. 

Victoria, which is one hundred miles southwest from San Antonio, 



52 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 




An Orange Tree at Beeviile. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 53 

160 miles from Galveston, 125 southwest from Houston, one hundred 
miles from Aransas Pass, and 28 miles northwest of Port Lavaca, on 
the bay, is called the City of Roses. It i^ situated on the New York, 
Texas and Mexican Railroad, connecting at Rosenberg, 92 miles north- 
east, with the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe. and the Galveston, Har- 
risburg and San Antonio (S. P. System). Victoria is the eastern ter- 
minus of the Gulf, West Texas and Pacific Railway (Beeville exten- 
sion), and connects with the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway 
at Cuero, 28 miles north, and at Beeville, 55 miles west, with the 
same road. Four graveled roads lead north, south, east and west 
from Victoria. The soil of the county is from light sandy to blackest 
hog-wallow. 

The city is enjoying a healthy, steady growth, its present pop- 
ulation being between six and seven thousand. 

The streets are wide, kept in good condition, and the sidewalks 
better than are usually found in cities of its size. A fine system of 
water-works, owned and operated by the city, furnishes an ample 
supply of water for irrigating and household purposes, as well as for 
the prevention of any disastrous conflagration, the fire department 
being well equipped and ably managed. A fine electric light plant fur- 
nishes light for the city, and is in general use in public buildings, 
stores, offices and many of the private residences. 

Churches of nearly every denominatipn hold services in Victoria, 
which are well attended. The principal secret societies have lodges 
there. The educational facilities of the city are excellent, there be- 
ing several institutions of learning in addition to the ably conducted 
public schools. Two banks, one national and one private, both with 
ample capital, are as solid financial institutions as can be found in the 
State. An opera house with a seating capacity of one thousand, as 
well as many substantial business blocks and beautiful homes, make 
this an almost ideal town. 

Victoria was first settled In 1824. The general face of the coun- 
try throughout the section is level, though sufficiently undulating to 
afford ample drainage for much the larger portion of the county. To 
the westward of the city is situated the far-famed Mission Valley, 
whose picturesqueness of location and rich lands have made it well 
known both far and near. The northern portion of the county is a 
rich, alluvial, sandy, undulating prairie, with fine creeks of running 
waters. It is in this section that Mr. G. Onderdonk has been so suc- 
cessful with his nurseries, demonstrating its thorough adaptation to 
the growth of fruits and flowers. At this place is Nursery, a depot 
on the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railroad, nine miles above 
the city of Victoria and nineteen miles below the city of Cuero, in 



54 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

DeWitt County, at which there is a postoffice, a fine steam cotton 
gin and grist mill. A short distance above this is a stock pen on the 
G. W T. & P. railroad, for Shipment of cattle, postoffice, two stores, 
etc., etc. 

The southeastern portion of the county is comparatively level, 
rich, black, stiff, hogwallow land, producing the finest native grapes, 
with a large number of farms on the Arinosa and Garcitas creeks. 
Through this section runs that branch of the G. W. T & P. railroad, 
running from Victoria to Port Lavaca, on which there are in Victoria 
County tv/o depots: Guadalupe, five miles below Victoria and twen- 
ty-three miles above Port Lavaca, and Placido, thirteen miles below 
Victoria and fifteen above Port Lavaca. 

The southwestern portion is rich, black alluvial prairie soil, quite 
undulating, yielding the finest of native grapes, and very susceptible 
of a high state of cultivation, producing fine crops of corn, cotton, sor- 
ghum, potatoes and all varieties of garden vegetables. Through this 
section runs that branch of the N. Y. T. & M. railroad leading from 
Victoria through Goliad to Beeville, on which there are in Victoria 
County, Aloe, a shipping point five miles west of Victoria; Lucy, a 
station eight miles west of Victoria, at which last named place there is 
quite a settlement, with fine farms well cultivated, with church and 
schoolhouse. 

At Victoria the compiler of this pamphlet secured the following 
facts and figures which can be depended upon as reliable, and which 
apply in large part to the whole region from Houston to Beeville: The 
average yield of cotton is three-fourths of a bale per acre; of corn, 30 
bushels; sugarcane, an average of seven barrels of molasses per acre, 
this with inferior machinery run alone by horse power; sorghum 
yields three crops a year of four tons each per acre; millet two crops 
a year of two tons each; concho and confederate grass comes upon 
corn land after the crop is laid by, and if proper care is taken to leave 
land in suitable condition, it yields a ton per acre; native hay from 
prairie sells for six dollars per ton, Irish potatoes yield two hundred 
bushels per acre, sweet potatoes two hundred bushels per acre, onions 
forty bushels per acre. 

Heretofore the attention of the people has been turned principally 
to the raising of cattle, for which purpose the county has been to a 
great extent fenced into large pastures. The day for cattle raising 
under the old system is passed, and more attention is given to farm- 
ing and raising fine stock. Jerseys, Durham, Brahman, Holstein, 
Hereford and Devon cattle have been tested, and all do well, yielding 
fine profits. 

It may be said here that the taxes, state and county, throughout 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



55 



the Coast Country, run from 70 to 95 cents per hundred dollars, and 
broken farm lands are assessed at from $2.50 to $2.75 per acre. 

Port Lavaca, directly situated on the Gulf Coast, in Calhoun, 
the peninsular count}' of Texas, is 28 miles east of Victoria and is the 
terminus of the G. W. T. & P. Railroad. The present population of 
the town is nine hundred and that of the county has grown from eight 
hundred in 1890 to twenty-two hundred in 1895. Population has 
heretofore been retarded through the great stock ranches and pas- 
tures, but these are now being put on the market and there are thou- 
sands of acres being offered to purchasers in lots j to suit. The soil 



is a heavy black from five 
deep and ranges from black 
black sandy. Below the 
is fifteen feet of clay and 
below that qauicksand 
strata in which there is 
an abundant flow of ex- tt; 
cellent water. The town 





to ten feet 

waxy to 

soil 



.*#>« 



.t 





Post Office, Houston 

of Port Lavaca is a 
great fish and game 
shipping point. The 
waters of the bay — 
ten feet in depth, with 
seven feet on the bar 
— are filled with the 
finest fish while in 

Market and City Hall, Houston. the f'lll and winter 

thousands of ducks, geese and brant are shot and shipped to Nev\- 
York, Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City as well as to the 
southern cities. Terrapin farming is also prosecuted with success. 
Green Lake in Calhoun County is the largest body of fresh water 
in the state, comprising some 6000 acres, with a depth of twelve feet 
in the center. The bluffs about it are in places forty feet high and 
finely timbered. The lake is filled with edible fish. At Port Lavaca 
the writer was shown specimens of figs from shoots of trees raised 
long before the war and which the Department of Agriculture recent- 



56 THE COAST COUNTR\- OF TEXAS- 

ly pronounced a new and valuable variety. 1 also saw buckwheat 
which had been planted in September and was ripening in early No- 
vember. Two crops of potatoes, two of melons and sometimes two 
of corn are raised on the same ground. The timber, as along most 
of the coast is oak of various kinds, salt water cedar, elm, hackberry, 
etc. The county has a permanent school fund of $32,000, which en- 
ables it to have first class schools from eight to ten months each year. 
The population is quiet and law abiding and enterprising. 

Just across Lavaca bay near the town of Olivia is located the 
famous Swedish Colony, the success of which has done so much to 
make known the resources of the immediate Coast Country. Excel- 
lent prairie land adapted to any of the purposes of agriculture, horti- 
culture or truck farming, can be had throughout this region at from six 
to ten dollars per acre, often on the most reasonable terms, one-quar- 
ter cash, the balance in seven years time. 

Cuero, the county seat of DeWitt County, is located in the val- 
ley of the Guadalupe river, at the junction of the Southern Pacific and 
San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railwa}^, near the center of the 
county. It is 103 miles southeast from San Antonio, 183 miles west 
of Galveston and 170 miles from the new deep water harbor of Aran- 
sas Pass. It is a modern progressive city, with an established pres- 
ent and a certain future. Its location is exceptional and its commer- 
cial possibilities almost unlimited. The city is laid out on an attrac- 
tive plan. An esplanade, 120 feet in width, extends through the 
center of the city, and all cross streets are seventy feet wide, all well 
lighted and graded. The principal streets are lined with well design- 
ed business blocks of brick and stone, of handsome appearance, while 
fine houses of modern style of architecture, with attractive grounds, 
greet the eye on every hand. The stranger's attention is at once di- 
rected to a beautiful structure of native white stone, trimmed in red 
sandstone, which is now under course of construction, and promises 
when completed, to be one of the handsomest court houses in the 
state, costing $70,000. 

During the season of 1894-5 there were marketed at Cuero, 24- 
000 bales of cotton, and during the same time 12,500 head of cattle, 
50 car loads of horses, mules, sheep and hogs were shipped from this 
point to other markets, while 250 cars of lumber, worth $50,000 and 
2200 cars of merchandise valued at two million dollars, were received 
and distributed. Cuero supplies the farmers and merchants of a large 
adjacent territory. Two extensive merchandise houses have a large 
wholesale business extending to every portion of southwest Texas. 
One of the largest cotton seed oil mills in the state, having a capacity 
of eighty tons per day is in full operation, and a cotton factory with 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 57 

fifteen hundred spindles producing the coarser grades of cotton goods, 
for which there is an unlimited home market. A new compress cost- 
ing $50,000 has just commenced operations, and notwithstanding a 
reduced acreage is doing a fine business. 

Cuero has three of the largest cotton gins in the state, supplied 
with the latest improved machinery, with a daily output of three 
hundred bales Machine shops of large capacity are kept busy by an 
increasing trade from several counties. An ice factory ships ice in 
car load lots in all directions; it also has a cold storage department in 
connection, and a natatorium with a large swimming pool. Two 
broom factories, two bottling works, a cigar factory, a tannery, a 
planing mill and a cistern factory are among the material interests of 
the city. Cuero has two private and one national banking institu- 
tions. They are all strong financially, under safe and conservative 
management, and transact an enormous business amounting to more 
than seven and one-half millions dollars annually. The financial 
status of the community is excellent, failures in business circles are 
few, and losses from loans are almost unknown. The city is in good 
financial condition. It owns its water works plant which cost $50,- 
000. The total assessed value of the city is $1,750,000 at a very 
conservative valuation. The tax rate is eighty cents on the $100.00. 
The bonded debt of the city does not exceed $40,000, and warrants 
are all paid in full once a year. The city is lighted by electricity, 
the plant being owned by a private corporation. Local and long dis- 
tance telephone systems are among the modern equipments of the 
city. 

Cuero has a fine graded school system with upwards of five 
hundred pupils, and a high school building costing $20,000, and sev- 
eral private schools of high merit. Eight churches rear their spires 
heavenward, as an evidence of christian enlightenment and a God 
fearing community. The population of the county is approximately 
20,000 people, about six thousand of which are urban and 14,000 rural 
residents. The assessors returns for 1895 show a total valuation of 
$6,062,047, for the county, an increase of $93,541 over last year, due 
entirely to improvements as land values were not raised. This valu- 
ation is on a very conservative estimate and probably less than half 
the real value of all property in the county which the writer believes 
to be approximately fifteen million dollars. There are in the county 
48,336 cattle; 10852 horses and mules; 7634 hogs and 3987 sheep. 
Stock raising was the principal industry in the past, but agriculture 
has already taken the first position, and while the farmers all raise 
some stock, the great herds are being driven to seek new and less 
valuable lands. 



58 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 

The soil and Liimate are well aaapted to fruit growing, and there 
are a few large and productive orchards in the county, but the de- 
mand is much greater than the supply, and there are great opportuni- 
ties for the horticulturist here. LeConte and other varieties of pears 
grow to perfection, and for flavor are superior to those grown in Cal- 
ifornia. As much as four hundred dollars per acre has been realized 
upon one year's crop of this fruit. Peaches of the southern Chinese 
varieties are particularly prolific, while the "vine and fig-tree" liave 
their home here. Plums, pomegranates, Japanese persimmons and 
berries of all kinds, particularly blackberries, are successfully grown 
Fortune awaits any and all who desire to engage in fruit raising in De- 
Witt County. Fine land suitable for farming or fruitgrowing can be 
had at from five to twelve dollars per acre, and even less in large 
tracts. Improved farms sell at from ten to twenty-five dollars per 
acre, and rare bargains are sometimes offered. Artesian water has 
been obtained at a depth of from 50 to 125 feet, while pure surface 
water is reached at from 1 5 to 40 feet. DeWitt County is a part of 
the famous "Cotton Belt" of Texas, and the fleecy staple is the prin- 
cipal crop. Cotton matures early, this county for years furnishing 
the first bale of the season. It is planted sometimes as early as Feb- 
ruary, but usually in March, and it begins to mature in June. Later 
cotton, however, has given good satisfaction for the past few years. 
The crop averages about three-quarters of a bale to the acre, and sells 
for cash in the Cuero market. Corn is an important crop, and the 
present year's yield was enormous. Oats produce as high as one hun- 
dred bushels to the acre, and barley and rye are profitable. Irish po- 
tatoes yield two hundred bushels to the acre, while sweet potatoes 
are usually more prolific. Vegetables of all kinds grow to perfection, 
and many varieties grow nearly all the year. Melons attain enormous 
size, and are of excellent flavor. Hay is an important and valuable 
crop, both prairie and field grasses growing luxuriantly. Hay com- 
mands a fair price, and as much as three and four tons per acre are 
cut, two crops per year being the rule. Millet, fodder and other feed 
crops are raised with little labor and small outlay. This is the natural 
home of the cow and sheep, the pastures of this section being unsur- 
passed. Cattle need only be fed a few weeks in the year, and sheep 
require little attention. 

There are fine chances for profitable dairy farming here; good 
butter and milk command good prices and ready sale. Native timber 
consists of post oak, live oak, blackjack and mesquite on the uplands, 
while pecan, hickory, ash, elm, mulberry and hackberry abound in 
the valleys. There is a plentiful supply for all purposes for many 
years to come. For the above facts the writer is indebted to Mr. A. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF ThXAS. 



59 



S. Crisp, editor of the Cuero Star, whose intelligent interest has done 
much to bring his city and county into notice abroad. The descrip- 
tion of soils and crops applying to Cuero will apply with equal force 
to the region for a considerable distance north and south on a line 
equi-distant from the coast line. 







Court House at Goliod, Texas. 



Goliad, 26 miles south of Victoria, is one of the Idstoric towns of 
Texas, its history interwoven with that of the State, and embalming 
some of the noblest examples of devotion to patriotic fervor. It is a 
beautiful and busy town, in a splendid agricultural region. The 



6o THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 

county was created in 1836. It was a municipality of the same name 
prior to its organization. It is situated in Southwest Texas, and is 
one of the second tier of counties from the Gulf coast, from which it 
is separated by Refugio County. 

The leading industry of the people is stock-raising. Agriculture 
in connection with stock-raising is on the increase. The soil, which is 
a black sandy loam, is well suited to the growth of the common field 
crops of the State. That along the river bottoms is of great fertility. 
Nearly all kinds of vegetables grow and yield well; fruits also pro- 
duce well. 

Goliad, the county seat, is a place of historic importance, having 
been the scene of a massacre of a garrison of Texas soldiers by the 
Mexican army in 1836, after the former had yielded by a surrenderto 
greatly superior numbers. 

The surface of the county is undulating, through which flows 
the San Antonio River, and a number of ever-living creeks. The as- 
sessed valuation of property is upwards of four million dollars, and 
the school population is close to two thousand. The city is graced by 
a beautiful court-house and very excellent commercial buildings and 
private residences, and is the seat of a cultivated society. 

Beeville, which was established in 1856, a year after the organiz- 
ation of the county, is at the junction of the Gulf, Western Texas & 
Pacific and San Antonio & Aransas Pass railways. Its present popu- 
lation is three thousand. An excellent court-house and a model school 
building are among the public structures which attract attention. 
There are six churches of different denominations. A Holly system 
of waterworks has been put in, and an electric light plant is talked of 
in connection v/ith the ice plant which is now in operation. Beeville 
has several enterprises in the way of manufactories, such as a broom 
factory, fence factory, cornice factory, windmill factory, etc., besides 
a large number of enterprising merchants and business men, and two 
national banks are in operation. 

Like all, or the greater part of this section of the Coast country, 
the soil is a black sandy loam, and well adapted to the growth of 
fruits. The grape, currant, and the berry fruits, blackberries, dew- 
berries and strawberries, all do well. The general surface of the 
county is rolling prairie, covered with a luxuriant growth of grass, 
which furnishes ample pasturage for stock the larger portion of the 
year. 

Directly on the Gulf coast, at the extreme southern boundary of 
the region we are exploiting, are two excellent towns, Corpus Christi 
and Rockport, delightful winter or summer resorts, with much to com- 
mend them to the commercial spirit of the age. Corpus Christi is the 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



6l 



most beautifully located city by the sea in America. It is at the head 
of Corpus Christi Bay, directly behind Ropes Pass, and is known as 
the Bluff City, from the fact of being situated upon a noble bluff 
twice as high as the famous Long Branch, New Jersey. Before it ex- 
pands 150 miles of shimmering water. It is not an unusual thing for 
a winter to slip by here without the appearance of a frost. Here is to 
be had the finest of fishing, boating, bathing and hunting It is fa- 
mous for its delicious oysters and other sea food. It is celebrated for 
its healthfulness, and its death rate is more favorable than that of the 
most renowned health resorts of the world. The official report for 1890 
shows that the deaths among white people from natural causes were 
only eight per thousand. This is due to its situation facing the bay, 
swept by the salty sea breezes fresh from the Gulf of Mexico. These 
breezes make it cooler in summer and warmer in winter than any oth- 
er city in Texas. The population of the city is about six thousand, 
and the business center is substantially built up, while upon the bluff 
overlooking the bay are very handsome homes, some of which would 
do credit to Newport or Bar Harbor. There are two flowing mineral 
wells at Corpus Christi, one of them possessing remarkable curative 
properties. The lands in the vicinity are suitable to the cultivation 
of tobacco, sugar, cotton, grapes, figs, peaches, oranges, lemons, ban- 
anas and all varieties of garden truck. The rich dark soil, which is 
from five to nine feet deep, is practically inexhaustible. Mr. Joe Tri- 
pis, a practical market gardener, has prepared the following statistics 
of early market gardening from his own experience. The estimates 
are based on two crops per year, while as a matter of fact three are 
raised successfully. 



COST. 



Seed Potatoes, 8 bushels to the acre, at $1 
Seed Corn, ten quarts to the acre, at 30c. . 
Seed Tomatoes, 141b t > the acre, at $2 
Seed Peas, 3 bushels to the acre, at $'2.5U,.. 
Seed Melons, I'-^lbs to the acre, at 35c 
Seed Cabhacfe 3/2lb tothe acre, at$2 
Seed Cauliflower, two ounces, at $5 
Seed Beans, two bushels to acre, at $1 . , 
Ten acres of land, at $50 

Three-room Cottage 

Help, etc 

Total 




YIELD PER 
ACRE 



Bushels 

Potatoes, 123 

Corn, 36 

Tomatoes, 250 

Peas, 55 

Beans, 9') . 
Melons, 1,000 
Cabhag^e, 8000 
Cauliflower, 7,000.. 
Total 



Early 


Late 


Crop 


Crop 
Price 


Price 


$3.00 


.•fO.75 


.m 


.10 


4.00 


2.0(1 


3.(10 


1.50 


3.0. ' 


1.50 


.25 


.10 


.07 











$ 468.75 

35 00 

1,500.00 

247 50 

405 00 

350 00 

560 00 

1,400.00 

I 4,966 25 



STATE of TEXAS, 
COUNTY of ARANSAS. 



Sworn to and subscribed before me this 12th day of February, 
1891. E. H. NORVELL, 

Notary Public, Aransas County, Texas. 

Rockport, in San Patricio County, has an interesting history. 
Twenty years ago Rockport was the wealthiest town of its size in the 
South, and the name was known to all Texans of that day — bef(^re 
the railroads came — as one of the largest beef canning centers in the 
Union, in fact, the Chicago of the South as regards this industry. 



62 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS 

Now it is one of the most inspiring and beautiful and restful sum- 
mer resorts to be imagined. The town is situated on what is called 
Live Oak Peninsula, between Aransas and Copano Bays, about six 
miles from the point on the Aransas Bay side and three miles from 
the Copano Bay side. The land of the Peninsular is a mixture of 
disintegrated shell and sand, with an underlying white clay subsoil 
from four to six feet from the surface, and is profusely covered with 
live oak trees, from which it takes its name. The live oaks extend to 
the water's edge on both shores, and in some places are of immense 
growth, affording a picturesque combination of forest and sea. The 
population of the town is about twelve hundred, and the principal in- 
dustries are hunting and fishing. 

To-day the mournful evidences of her former greatness lie in mute 
proof of the changed economic conditions made possible by the iron 
horse. And to-day the masters of the iron horse have decided to again 
bring life to this old town, not as a beef canning center, not as a place 
to seek a livelihood by the wholesale destruction of her thousands of 
wild fowl and fishes, but as a spot selected by nature as her favorite 
playground, to which she has given the balmiest, brightest days, the 
purest, dryest air, and the most elevated position of her southern 
coast. 

From indications taken six times each twenty-four hours the past 
three years by Capt. Stracken, the wharfmaster, at 6 a.m., 12 m., 
3 p.m., 6 p.m., 12 m. and 3 a.m., the following averages have been 
arrived at: Winter months— thermometer 57 deg., barometer 30.70; 
spring months — thermometer -jj, barometer 30; summer months — 
thermometer 86, barometer 29.90; fall months — thermometer 60, bar- 
ometer 30.50. This gives more correct averages than could be arrived 
at from the Signal Service reports, as their indications are taken only 
three times in twenty-four hours. 

This section has no rainy season, but rains average well through- 
out the year, with a possible excess during June and July. Water 
never stays but a few minutes on the surface, no matter how hard 
the fall, but sinks through the porous soil and is retained on the clay 
subsoil. 

During the months of November and December, 1892, January 
and February, 1893, there were ninety-seven clear days, seven 
cloudy days, and seventeen partly both. 

Agriculture in this section up to about five years ago was an un- 
known quantity, and is engaged in at present only to a limited extent, 
except in two particulars — grape and winter vegetable growing. 
These industries do well here, there being now about eight hundred 
acres planted in winter vegetables, which will supply the market un- 
til March. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



63 




.--■S 







64 THE CAOST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

In a review of the immediate Coast country, as exemplified at 
such points as Corpus Christi, Rockport, Aransas Pass, Port Lavaca, 
etc., it may be said that there are aids and abettors in the economy 
of living that are readily taken advantage of. From fall to spring all 
the waters are covered with millions of duck, geese and brant, and 
on shore there are quail, rabbits, peccaries, wild turkeys, deer, etc. 
The bays are alive with the finest food and game fish of many varie- 
ties. There are oysters, shrimp, crabs and turtles without limit. 

Another pleasant feature is the conspicuous absence of doctors' 
bills from the domestic economy. As the residents say, the country 
could not be healthier, there is absolutely no malaria in this Coast 
Country. This may be ascribed to the pure drinking water and the 
salt breezes from the Gulf of Mexico. Though the death rate at Gal- 
veston is only 13.3 per 1000, it is so mucli lower in Corpus Christi 
that Galveston is considered a very unhealthy place. It is only 8 
per ICXKD at Corpus Christi; and that is about as low as it can get, 
even where people die of old age only. At Aransas Pass it has not 
reached 8 per 1000, as but few people are old enough to establish the 
rate. The doctors say there is no prevailing disease, and children 
grow up in perfect immunity from many of the dangers that sur- 
round them in the north. 

Thus in brief we have reviewed — not fully nor in detail — the 
chief towns of the country. It has been a trying task, because so 
many charming places, made memorable by the courtesy and enthu- 
siasm of their leading citizens, no less than by their public spirit and 
progress, have been worthy of consideration ; but in so general a re- 
view, having so many interests to present within a limited space and 
with so many demands upon one's time and thought, it was not pos- 
sible to do justice at this time to much that appealed to one for con- 
sideration. It suffices to say that the towns referred to are an index 
to all. The lesser ones are prototypes of the larger — infused by the 
same spirit of progress, of enlightenment and of thrift. They are all 
centers of intelligence, of culture and refinement in proportion to their 
size. As they afford markets for the products of the farmer so too 
they offer educational and social advantages and these are by no 
means confined to those enumerated. Each county capital has its 
satellites, lesser centers, so far as population is concerned and yet 
equally important to the neighborhoods tributary to them. Having 
come in contact with many people in many different localities in this 
wide Coast Country, the disinterested writer vouches for their intelli- 
gence, their kindly interest, their hospitality and their activity in 
every movement to promote the welfare of their section or secure 
and assist desirable c^miizrants to secure homes among tliem. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS- 



65 




THE HOME SEEKER AND A PEN-PICTURE CONTRAST. 



It is not improbable that in the course of this hasty review many 
of the less conspicuous and some of the more important field and garden 
crops which can be profitably raised in the Coast Country have been 
omitted. But enough has been said to show how varied are the prod- 
ucts and to illustrate the wide range here afforded the agriculturist, the 
horticulturist and the gardener. Reference has been made to the 
soils, to the lines of transportation and the methods of communica- 
tion, to the market and shipping facilities, to the advantages of cli- 
mate, to the character of the population and the influence of its 
schools, churches and all the institutions of an advanced civilization. 
It is needless to say that a warm welcome awaits the law abiding, in- 
dustrious settler. 

But what class of people should settle on the Gulf Coast .-^ 

In the first place this is not a Utopia where man can acquire 
wealth without effort. For him who comes with the energy and de- 
termination, the willingness to work and the purpose to succeed, 
there is an assured competency. But if any one who shall read 
these pages has imbibed the impression that he can secure affluence 
in idleness he might as well dismiss the thought or stay away from 
Texas. The good things to be had here are to be won as the result 
of toil. The soil does not yield without planting nor give up its har- 
vests without reaping. Fertile and generous as it is, it must be cul- 
tivated and the husbandman must follow the plow or bend with the 
hoe as elsewhere. The only difference is that here the returns are 
larger. The reward is in proportion to the care and industry be- 
stowed. 

1 took a great deal of pains to ascertain what had been accom- 
plished by actual settlers who had come from the North, and to learn 
what were the requisites for successful home seekers of modest 
means and what they could reasonably hope to accomplish with mod- 
est capital at their disposal. 1 looked in upon the colony of Swedes 
who came from Travis County, Texas, in 1892, and located eight 
miles west of Victoria. They paid ten dollars an acre for their land 
and put small improvements upon it. Upon their purchases they 
paid one-third down and had five years in which to pay the balance. 
The second year all but one man paid out. In the spring of 1895 
they were offered $22. 50 per acre for their land and refused it. They 
knew a good thing when they savy it. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS- 67 

A man coming to the Coast Country with five or six hundred 
dollars, a good team and farm implements with the purpose of en- 
gaging in fruit culture should buy about forty acres. With the as- 
sistance of his family he can easily plant and cultivate eight or ten 
acres in sweet potatoes, and the other thirty acres in garden truck, 
berries or cotton. From these crops he can safely count on a return 
of from $600 to $800. As soon as he gathers his crop (October and 
November) he can plant a winter garden, from which he can fully 
meet his necessary living expenses during the winter months ; then, 
during January and February he should plant two to five acres in 
strawberries, and put out as much orchard as he desires, as the land 
will be in fine condition after one year's cultivation in either cotton or 
sweet potatoes. For succeeding years, until his orchard comes into 
bearing, he can cultivate the space between the trees in corn, cotton 
and vegetables. His forty acres, well cultivated, will yield him an- 
nually from $2,500 to $5,000, and from $300 to $500 will pay for all 
extra labor required. This extra help will be needed only for a short 
time in gathering and marketing his crops. Nearly all the work can 
be done by himself and family. It is thought a yield of $500 to $800 
per acre is a low estimate for a bearing pear orchard, and strawber- 
ries will yield from $300 to $500 per acre. Plums, grapes and some 
other fruits do as well or better than pears. 

The result of my investigations in the Coast Country as a whole 
— forming a composite picture, as it were, to meet all requirements, 
with such modifications as local conditions would necessitate, but ap- 
plicable to the larger portion of the region — convinced me that a home- 
seeker should at least have money enough to make a one-third pay- 
ment on his land, (it is usually sold on a cash payment of one-third 
or one-fourth, balance in five or seven years at seven or eight per 
cent.) buy necessary tools, implements and stock and put up his im- 
provements in the way of house and outbuildings. Lumber for ordi- 
nary purposes costs from $S to $14 per thousand, and it is forty per 
cent, cheaper to build a house in the Coast Country than in the North, 
not only because the material is less expensive, but because it is not 
necessary, in a climate where one ton of coal or its equivalent in wood 
is ample for the winter, to construct such houses as the rigorous cli- 
mate of the North necessitates. 

Let us suppose that our home-seeker has purchased eighty acres 
at $10 per acre — $800. He has paid a little more than he might have 
got other land for, but he has wisely chosen with respect to drainage, 
soil, proximity to railroad and town. He paid one-third down, which 
was $275. His house cost him $200. In four or five years he will 
move this house back and you will find him living in a more impor- 



68 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

tant mansion, but the present home is comfortable even if it is plain 
and unpretentious. He spent ^225 for his team and necessary imple 
ments, and his other necessary expenses are ^150, 

Now our home-seeker is ready to begin the real work for which 
he came. It don't matter much what the season when he arrived, 
for he can go right to work putting in a crop. But the imaginary set- 
tler of modest means whom we have in mind reached his land about 
November ist, and immediately after making his improvements he 
commenced breaking the sod in fact he hadn't waited to make his 
improvements before putting in some vegetables, winter cabbage, 
etc., which he could sell at high prices at the North, March ist in 
the middle of January he was planting snap beans, and between the 
first and fifteenth of February he got in his crop. His spring vegeta- 
bles he got out about the first of March, planting cucumbers, snap 
beans, tomatoes, radishes, etc., which he began to ship the last of 
April. 

Between the first and tenth of March he planted his corn and 
oats. Our new settler divided his place pretty equitably according 
to his needs, for he put in twenty acres of cotton, twenty acres of 
corn, five in sorghum and five in oats, three in vegetables and the 
balance in pasture and meadow. Beginning upon some such general 
plan as this our settler would pay out the second or third year and 
would open an account at the bank besides. 

And talking about banks reminds us of a point worth mentioning. 
The new settler must not depend upon loans from the banks. He 
won't get them. The exemption laws of Texas are so liberal that the 
banks for their own protection and as a matter of common prudence 
dare not loan heavily upon this class of security. For this reason the 
farmers of Texas are perhaps the most debt-free and independent in 
the world, and the liberal spirit in which these laws were framed has 
been a blessing to the commonwealth. Thus the property exempt 
from forced sale is as follows: 

1. The homestead of the family, not to exceed 200 acres, togeth- 
er with improvements. 

2. All household and kitchen furniture. 

3. Any lot or lots in the cemetery held for the purposes of se- 
pulture. 

4. All implements of husbandry 

5. All tools, apparatus and books belonging to any trade or pro- 
fession. 

6. The family library and ail family portraits and pictures. 

7. Five mflch cows and their calves. 

8. Two yoke of work oxen with necessary yokes and chains. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



69 



I' -~?^ 



II^P"i 



% ■ 3. 



■*'i 




J>i/f,. 



•JO THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



9 



Two horses and one wauon. 



10. One carriage or buggy 

11. One gun. 

12. Twent)' hogs. 

13. Twent)' head of sheep 

14. All saddles, bridles and harness for the use of the family. 

15. All provision and forage on hand for home consumption. 

16. All current wages for personal services. 

Heretofore reference has been made in a general way to the soil 
of the coast region — the black waxy or hog wallow, and the various 
sandy soils, light and dark. It is very necessary that the new settler 
should examine these soils for himself and select such an one as is 
adapted to the purposes he designs to put it to. The sandy soils be- 
come more general as one goes south from Houston and back from the 
Gulf coast. The special adaptability of each variety of soil being well 
known, the settler will have no difficulty in informing himself should 
his own experience be insufficient, but for purposes of guidance we 
introduce the analysis of the soils of the State, applying as it does to 
the Coast Country, given by the State Commissioner of Agriculture 
in liis annual report for 1894. He says: 

"Texas justly lays claim to greater variety and richness of soil 
than any State in the Union. The black waxy, black sandy, blacK 
pebbly, hog wallow, gray sandy, red sandy, sandy loam and alluvial 
soils are each to be found in the State, the majority of them in great- 
er or less quantities in each section. About the best evidence of the 
richness and fertility of these various soils that can be offered is the 
fact that commercial fertilizers, now so common in the older States, 
and constituting as much a fixed charge on the agricultural interests 
of those sections as the seed necessary to plant the ground, are not 
used at all in Texas. Another fact worthy of mention in this connec- 
tion is that there are thousands of acres in cultivation in this State 
that have been cultivated continuously for more than thirty years 
which now yield as much per acre as they did when first planted. 
The principal soils of Texas are the black waxy, black sandy and al- 
luvial lands of the river bottoms. The other varieties are minor divis- 
ions, and for the purpose of this report a brief description of these only 
will be given. 

"Black waxy soil. — The black waxy soil, so called from its color 
and adhesive qualities, is the richest and most durable of the soils of 
the State. It constitutes a large percentage of the prairie region, and 
is better adapted to the growth of grain crops than other soils of the 
State. It varies in depth from twelve inches ft) many feet, the aver- 
age depth being about eighteen inches, and is not appreciably affected 
bv the washing rains so ii^iurious to looser soils. 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 71 

One of the largest bodies of upland black prairie in the United 
States extends from Lamar County on the Red River, southwest in 
an irregular manner to a point south of San Antonio, in Bexar Coun- 
ty, with a width of 140 miles on the north end, 100 in the middle, and 
about 60 on the south end, and embracing twenty-three and parts of 
twenty-six counties. 

"Black sandy soil. — ^This soil covers a very large area of the 
State, and is very productive and easily cultivated. It is highly es- 
teemed for gardening purposes and fruit growing. It is very loose, 
and requires care and attention to prevent deterioration from washing 
away of the surface. Portions of the timber region, counties border- 
ing on the timber belt of East Texas, and also the Cross Timbers, 
contain more or less sandy land. 

"The alluvial soils of the river bottoms vary in quality according 
to the territory drained by the streams on which they are located. 
River soils east of the Brazos River partake more of the waxy char- 
acter and are stiffer than those on the Brazos and streams westward 
that drain the sandy lands of the northwest. The Brazos River bot- 
tom is regarded as the most valuable in the State, on account of its 
fertility and comparative immunity from overflows. The lower Bra- 
zos is in the heart of the sugar growing belt, and its bottom lands in 
that section are considered equal to the best in the sugar producing 
region of Louisiana." 

In the settlement of remote regions it was deemed expedient to 
form colonies for mutual protection or to secure social environments 
not otherwise possible. It is needless to say this is not necessary in 
the Coast Country of Texas, where settlement has existed in concrete 
form for sixty or seventy years, and where every desirable adjunct 
of civilization is to be found. Yet colonies have their advantages even 
here, as they bring old neighbors or people with common ties of blood 
or purpose together and enabje them to act in harmony in things that 
pertain to their welfare. 

Mr. Gibbs, of the Land Department of the Southern Pacific, at 
San Antonio, who will always be glad to furnish the prospective set- 
tler with any information desired, has happily summarized the utili- 
tarian advantages of colonies as follows: 

"i. A colony or organization can select one person to correspond 
with us respecting purchase of lands, and can secure tracts of lands 
adjoining each other, or come to Texas in person and make proper se- 
lections after examination of the country. The agent can afford to 
make a reasonable concession on the price of land when sold in large 
bodies. 

"2. The ao;ent of the cojonv can arrange for the comforts of the 



72 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 



colonists en route, personally attend to procuring supplies, look after 
personal effects and see that everybody is properly ticketed when 
changing from one transportation line to another. When a colony com- 
prises forty or fifty, arrangements can be made to come through to 
their destination from any part of the United States without changing 

cars. 

"3. Colonies 
can buy, thiough 
then agent, lumber 
and supplies in the 
piincipal markets 
in the State, and 
have them shipped 
to the neaiest rail 



1 



'M^ * J 




Itoii li.inis at lloiiytou 

' )ad station at car 
load rates. 

' ' 4, Colonies 

can purchase horses 

rattle and other 

stock in droves at 

the lowest rates. 

They can aid each 

Main Street from Capitol Hill, Hoiuin Other materially at 

the start by combined labor in building, fencing, exchanging of farm 

stock, and joint labor in saving a crop. 

"5. They can form school communities, and receive at once the 
benefits of the public school fund; employ a resident physician; build 
a church, and secure a pastor of such religious faith as suits them. 

"6. They will have a society of their own, and be the nucleus 
of population that will tlock to them to enjoy the advantages they 

possess." 

And in fuller explanation of the reference made above to the 

school facilities to be enjoyed, it is well to remember that no State in 

the Union and no country in the world has so magnificently endowed 

her public free schools as Texas. The fathers of the State dedicated 

fifty million acres of land to educati(MT ; of these 17,712 acres were 



THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 73 

given to each county, and are controlled by the counties; the remain- 
der is controlled by the State. The permanent school fund now con- 
sists of interest-bearing securities, bonds and land notes amounting to 
$17,000,000. Beside the interest on this amount, one-third of the gen- 
eral revenue and a poll tax of $1 are appropriated for school purposes. 
Of the original land set apart, there now remains about twenty-eight 
million acres, which is held at from $2 to $5 per acre. Before many 
years the interest on the purchase money of school lands will be suffi- 
cient to maintain the public schools without taxation. The present 
apportionment allows about eight dollars per annum for each child of 
school age in the State. 

in this brief review of the advantages of the Coast Country — or 
rather of its capabilities— necessarily condensed to come within the 
limits of this pamphlet, the writer has sought to be honest with the 
prospective settler, with the region described, and with himself. Mis- 
representation would only do injury, and wilful exaggeration or dis- 
tortion of facts would neither be profitable nor judicious. He believes 
that every statement made can be amply verified, not in isolated 
cases, but in many instances, hi fact the exceptional cases have not 
been sought as illustrations. The purpose has uniformly been to get 
the average results. The accomplishments of nations are not meas- 
ured by the achievements of individuals — of geniuses of phenomenal 
sagacity, or skill, or discernment — but by the progress of the people 
as a whole. So it is equally true that we should not gauge the possi- 
bilities of a region by what a few have found attainable, but by the 
combined results of the many working with equal diligence and intel- 
ligence. That has been the purpose of the writer, and yet he has 
given recognition and weight to the fact that what one may accom- 
plish by superior methods of cultivation is within the grasp of all, and 
that the pioneer, experimenting on certain lines and demonstrating 
the abundant success and profitableness of his theories, opens to all 
the opportunity for like achievement. 

As the facts here presented have been in course of preparation 
for the printer the snows of late November have been falling all over 
the great region north of the Ohio and westward over the vast level 
prairies of the Dakotas and beyond. The brief summer has ended. 
Even the birds that gave it cheer have fled to more congenial climes. 
The shivering cattle huddle behind the stacks that give them suste- 
nance or within the confines of the sheds that shelter them from the 
biting wind. The farmer, with muffled ears and hands, goes stiffly 
about his duties and then retreats to the warmth of the house to stamp 
the encumbering snow from his feet and seek comfort by the fire in 
enforced idleness. The soil— it matters not what qualities of latent 



74 THH CCMST CC31INTR^- OF TBXAS. 

fertilit}- it may possess — is locked in the embrace of the frost king, 
and lies chill and frozen beneath its coverlet of snow. In the tires 
that for six months must be so persistently fed, in the heat generating 
foods that load the table, and in the weight of woolens that clothe 
the body to give defiance to the cold, is consumed the substance of 
the farmer's labors — of springtime sowing and of autumn harvest. 
To the chill discomfort of nature is added the insidious foe that strikes 
at every weak spot in the armor of the system with the dagger of 
disease — of pneumonia and pleurisy and rheumatism and catarrh and 
consumption in the well-to-do, who go from the glow of the fireside 
into the biting breath of the snow-laden air ; and of diphtheria, scar- 
let fever and typhoid that slay the children of the poor huddled in illy 
ventilated cottages or cabins where the warmth of the body is ex- 
pected to enforce and supplement the insufficient heat of the smolder- 
ing fire. It is the period of enforced idleness, of industrial death, 
when the farmer's energy finds itself fettered and when the inroads 
of necessity make sad havoc with the meager accumulations of capi- 
tal stored up during brief periods of garnering. 

And while this is true of the vast area above the snow line of the 
continent, how different is the picture when we turn to the Coast 
Country of Texas. I see it now with the roses clambering in pink 
and yellow mists over the embowered cottages. Contented women 
are sewing upon tlie wide balconies in the sunsliine that sifts like a 
golden dew through the fretwork of creeping vines that spread them- 
selves on trellised porticos. The cattle graze in gentle content and 
fatness upon the nutritious grass waving knee high in lush pastures. 
The robin lifts its song to drown the mocking bird The trees are in 
the period of their leafage yet and the yellow disk of the orange glows 
in its emerald setting of green. The farmer is busy in his fields and 
1 hear the familiar summons that guides his horses as they follow the 
furrow where he is planting, perhaps, the third crop within the twelve 
month Presently the oats or rye or barley that he sows shall put 
forth its tender blades, and before the Christmas slaughter of the 
wattled bird, will wave in beauty over the field it hides And just be- 
yond, the gardener, with loving care, is confiding to the earth the I 
vegetables, tender things of summer growth to the northward, but 
here the products of the so-called winter time. 

Men go about their duties care free, for full granaries and plent\' 
give content. The days have a hazy mellowness — warmth enough to 
bring comfort and cool enough to fill the blood with the impulse that 
we call energy. At night one draws the blanket close and 
sleep comes with the ozone of the near-by salt gulf to renew the 
strength of brain and sinew. The davs of December, Januarv and 



THE COAST COUNTRY' OF THXAS. 



75 



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76 THE COAST COUNTRY OF TEXAS. 

February drift by with perhaps an occasional frost to put a sauce upon 
the salad of such living, but no truant month slips past without seeing 
some crop confided to the ground or some harvest gathered to add to 
the abundant store that fills the land with plenty iNo time comes 
when the farmer, looking upon a frozen landscape, can sigh to feel 
that, with the willingness and purpose to work, he is perforce forbid- 
den to plant or reap. The perplexities that touch the hair with silver 
threads and early whiteness where the struggle is sharp, and where 
the spirit of affection is crucified for fear the loved ones shall suffer 
and be in need, comes not here to break the spirit, for want is a thing 
unknown and poverty is a spectre that knocks at no farm door. No 
wonder, then, that men live long and women grow old gracefully, and 
children show, in lusty limb and ruddy cheek and sparkling eye, the 
satisfaction of their lives, the content and prosperous abundance that 
they have inherited — not without v/ork, mind you, but ns the affluent 
reward of industry 

And though we were reared in latitudes where winter had its 
fullest sway, and though close to our hearts lie the love of the sports 
it brought about the glowing hearths of comfort in homes of plenty 
and of joy, yet infinitely more restful and more inspiring is the picture 
of that land that throws its arm about the waters of the wide, blue 
gulf and wooes alike the tempering breeze of summ.er and the balmy, 
perfume-laden airs and buds that make a mocker\' of winter in this 
fair coast land. 



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